QUESTIONS

We train a child to focus his mind, to concentrate, because without concentration he will not be able to
cope with life. Life requires it; the mind must be able to concentrate. But the moment the mind becomes
able to concentrate, it becomes less aware. Awareness means a mind that is conscious but not focused.
Awareness is a consciousness of all that is happening.
Concentration is a choice. It excludes all except its object of concentration; it is a narrowing. If you are
walking on the street, you will have to narrow your consciousness in order to walk. You cannot ordinarily
be aware of all that is happening because if you are aware of everything that is happening you will become
unfocused. So concentration is a need. Concentration of the mind is a need in order to live--to survive and
exist. That is why every culture, in its own way, tries to narrow the mind of the child.
Children, as they are, are never focused; their consciousness is open from all sides. Everything is
coming in, nothing is being excluded. The child is open to every sensation, every sensation is included in
his consciousness.
And so much is coming in! That is why he is so wavering, so unstable. A child's unconditioned mind is a
flux--a flux of sensations--but he will not be able to survive with this type of mind. He must learn how to
narrow his mind, to concentrate.
The moment you narrow the mind you become particularly conscious of one thing and simultaneously
unconscious of so many other things. The more narrowed the mind is, the more successful it will be. You
will become a specialist, you will become an expert, but the whole thing will consist of knowing more and
more about less and less.
The narrowing is an existential necessity; no one is responsible for it. As life exists, it is needed, but it is
not enough. It is utilitarian, but just to survive is not enough; just to be utilitarian is not enough. So when
you become utilitarian and the consciousness is narrowed, you deny your mind much of which it was
capable. You are not using the total mind, you are using a very small part of it.
And the remaining -- the major portion -- will become unconscious.
In fact, there is no boundary between conscious and unconscious. These are not two minds. "Conscious
mind" means that part of the mind that has been used in the narrowing process. "Unconscious mind" means
that portion that has been neglected, ignored, closed. This creates a division, a split. The greater portion of
your mind becomes alien to you. You become alienated from your own self; you become a stranger to your
own totality.
A small part is being identified as your self and the rest is lost. But the remaining unconscious part is
always there as unused potentiality, unused possibilities, unlived adventures. This unconscious mind--this
potential, this unused mind--will always be in a fight with the conscious mind; that is why there is always a
conflict within.
Everyone is in conflict because of this split between the unconscious and the conscious. But only if the
potential, the unconscious, is allowed to flower can you feel the bliss of existence; otherwise not.
If the major portion of your potentialities remains unfulfilled, your life will be a frustration. That is why
the more utilitarian a person is, the less he is fulfilled, the less he is blissful. The more utilitarian the
approach-- the more one is in business life--the less he is living, the less he is ecstatic. The part of the mind
that cannot be made useful in the utilitarian world has been denied.
The utilitarian life is necessary but at a great cost: you have lost the festivity of life. Life becomes a
festivity, a celebration, if all your potentialities come to a flowering; then life is a ceremony. That is why I
always say that religion means transforming life into a celebration. The dimension of religion is the
dimension of the festive, the nonutilitarian.
The utilitarian mind must not be taken as the whole. The remaining, the greater--the whole mind--should
not be sacrificed to it. The utilitarian mind must not become the end. It will have to remain there, but as a
means. The other--the remaining, the greater, the potential--must become the end. That is what I mean by a
religious approach.
With a nonreligious approach, the businesslike mind, the utilitarian, becomes the end. When this
becomes the end, there is no possibility of the unconscious actualizing the potential; the unconscious will be
denied. If the utilitarian becomes the end, it means that the servant is playing the role of the master.
Intelligence, the narrowing of the mind, is a means toward survival, but not toward life. Survival is not
life.
Survival is a necessity--to exist in the material world is a necessity--but the end is always to come to a
flowering of the potential, of all that is meant by you. If you are fulfilled completely, if nothing remains
inside in seed form, if everything becomes actual, if you are a flowering, then and only then can you feel the
bliss, the ecstasy of life.
The denied part of you, the unconscious part, can become active and creative only if you add a new
dimension to your life--the dimension of the festive, the dimension of play.
So meditation is not a work, it is a play. Praying is not a business, it is a play. Meditation is not
something to be done to achieve some goal--peace, bliss--but something to be enjoyed as an end in itself.
The festive dimension is the most important thing to be understood--and we have lost it totally. By
festive, I mean the capacity to enjoy, moment to moment, all that comes to you.
We have become so conditioned and habits have become so mechanical that even when there is no
business to be done, our minds are businesslike. When no narrowing is needed, you are narrowed. Even
when you are playing, you are not playing, you are not enjoying it. Even when you are playing cards, you
are not enjoying it. You play for the victory and then the play becomes a work; then what is going on is not
important, only the result.
In business the result is important. In festivity, the act is important. If you can make any act significant
in itself, then you become festive and you can celebrate it.
Whenever you are in celebration, the limits, the narrowing limits are broken. They are not needed, they
are thrown. You come out of your straitjacket, the narrowing jacket of concentration. Now you are not
choosing; everything that comes, you allow. And the moment you allow the total existence to come in, you
become one with it. There is a communion.
This communion--this celebration, this choiceless awareness, this nonbusinesslike attitude--I call
meditation.
The festivity is in the moment, in the act, not in the bothering about the results, not in achieving
something.
There is nothing to be achieved, so you can enjoy that which is here and now.
You can explain it in this way: I am talking to you; if I am concerned about the result, then the talk
becomes a business, it becomes a work. But if I talk to you without any expectations, without any desire
about the result, then the talk becomes a play. The very act, in itself, is the end. Then narrowing is not
needed. I can play with the words, I can play with the thoughts. I can play with your question, I can play
with my answer; then it is not serious, then it is lighthearted.
And if you are listening to me without thinking about getting something out of it, then you can be
relaxed; then you can allow me to be in communion with you and your consciousness will not be narrowed.
Then it is open-- playing, enjoying.
Any moment can be a business moment, any moment can be a meditative moment; the difference is in
the attitude. If it is choiceless, if you are playing with it, it is meditative.
There are social needs and there are existential needs that are to be fulfilled. I will not say, "Do not
condition children." If you leave them totally unconditioned, they will be barbaric. They will not be able to
exist. Survival needs conditioning but survival is not the end, so you must be able to put your conditioning
on and take it off--just like clothes. You can put them on, go out and do your business, and then come home
and take them off. Then you are.
If you are not identified with your clothes, with your conditioning, if you do not say, for example, "I am
my mind," it is not difficult; then you can change easily. But you become identified with your conditioning.
You say, "My conditioning is me," and all that is not your conditioning is denied. You think, "All that is not
conditioned is not me, the unconscious is not me; I am the conscious, the focused mind." This identification
is dangerous. This should not be. A proper education is not conditioned, but is conditioned with the
condition that conditioning is a utilitarian need; you must be able to take it on and off.
When it is needed you put it on, and when you do not need it you can take it off. Until it is possible to
educate human beings so that they do not become identified with their conditionings, human beings are not
really human beings.
They are robots -- conditioned, narrowed.
To understand this is to become aware of that part of the mind, the greater part, which has been denied
light. And to become aware of it is to become aware that you are not the conscious mind. The conscious
mind is just a part. "I" am both, and the greater part is unconditioned. But it is always there, waiting.
My definition of meditation is that it is simply an effort to jump into the unconscious. You cannot jump
by calculation because all calculation is of the conscious and the conscious mind will not allow it. It will
caution: "You will go mad. Do not do it."
The conscious mind is always afraid of the unconscious because if the unconscious emerges, all that is
calm and clear in the conscious will be swept away. Then everything will be dark, as in a forest.
It is like this: you have made a garden, a garden with a boundary. Very little ground has been cleared,
but you have planted some flowers and everything is okay--ordered, clear.
Only, the forest is always nearby. It is unruly, uncontrollable, and the garden is in constant fear of it. At
any moment the forest can enter and then the garden will disappear.
In the same way, you have cultivated a part of your mind.
You have made everything clear. But the unconscious is always around, and the conscious mind is
always in fear of it. The conscious mind says, "Don't go into the unconscious.
Don't look at it, don't think about it."
The path of the unconscious is dark and unknown. To reason, it will look irrational; to logic, it will look
illogical. So if you think in order to go into meditation, you will never go--because the thinking part will not
allow you to.
This becomes a dilemma. You cannot do anything without thinking, and with thinking you cannot go
into meditation.
What to do? Even if you think, "I am not going to think," this is also thinking. It is the thinking part of
the mind that is saying, "I shall not allow thinking."
Meditation cannot be done by thinking; this is the dilemma--the greatest dilemma. Every seeker will
have to come to this dilemma; somewhere, sometime, the dilemma will be there. Those who know say,
"Jump! Do not think!" But you cannot do anything without thinking. That is why unnecessary devices have
been created--I say unnecessary devices, because if you jump without thinking, no device is needed.
But you cannot jump without thinking, so a device is needed.
You can think about the device, your thinking mind can be put at ease about the device, but not about
meditation.
Meditation will be a jump into the unknown. You can work with a device and the device will
automatically push you into the unknown. The device is necessary only because of the training of the mind;
otherwise, it is not needed.
Once you have jumped you will say, "The device was not necessary, it was not needed." But this is a
retrospective knowing; you will know afterward that the device was not needed. That is what Krishnamurti
is saying: "No device is needed; no method is needed." The Zen teachers are saying, "No effort is needed; it
is effortless." But this is absurd for one who has not crossed the barrier. And one is mainly talking with
those who have not crossed the barrier.
So I say that a device is artificial. It is just a trick to put your rational mind at ease so that you can be
pushed into the unknown.
That is why I use vigorous methods. The more vigorous the method, the less your calculative mind will
be needed. The more vigorous it becomes, the more total, because vitality is not only of the mind--it is of
the body, of the emotions.
It is of your full being.
Sufi dervishes have used dance as a technique, as a device. If you go into dance you cannot remain
intellectual, because dance is an arduous phenomenon; your whole being is needed in it. And a moment is
bound to come when dance will become mindless. The more vital, the more vigorous, the more you are in it,
the less reason will be there. So dance was devised as a technique to push. At some point you will not be
dancing, but the dance will take over, will take you over; you will be swept away to the unknown source.
Zen teachers have used the koan method. Koans are puzzles that by their very nature are absurd. They
cannot be solved by reason; you cannot think about them. Ostensibly, it looks as if something can be
thought about them; that is the catch. It seems as if something can be thought about koans, so you begin to
think. Your rational mind is put at ease; something has been given to it to be solved. But the thing given to it
is something that cannot be solved. The very nature of it is such that it cannot be solved because the very
nature of it is absurd.
There are hundreds of puzzles. The teacher will say, "Think about a soundless sound." Verbally, it
seems as though it can be thought about. If you try hard, somehow, somewhere, a soundless sound can be
found; it may be possible. Then, at a certain point--and that point cannot be predicted; it is not the same for
everyone--the mind just goes flat. It is not there. You are, but the mind, with all its conditioning, is gone.
You are just like a child.
Conditioning is not there, you are just conscious; the narrowing concentration is not there. Now you
know that the device was not necessary--but this is an afterthought, it should not be said beforehand.
No method is causal; no method is the cause of meditation. That is why so many methods are possible.
Every method is just a device, but every religion says that its method is the way and no other method will
do. They all think in terms of causality.
By heating water, the water evaporates. Heat is the cause: without the heat, the water will not evaporate.
This is causal. Heat is a necessity that must precede evaporation. But meditation is not causal, so any
method is possible. Every method is just a device; it is just creating a situation for the happening; it is not
causing it.
For example, beyond the boundary of this room is the unbound, open sky. You have never seen it. I can
talk with you about the sky, about the freshness, about the sea, about all that is beyond this room, but you
have not seen it. You do not know about it. You just laugh; you think I am making it up. You say, "It is all
fantastic. You are a dreamer." I cannot convince you to go outside because everything that I can talk about
is meaningless to you.
Then I say, "The house is on fire!" This is meaningful to you; this is something that you can understand.
Now I do not have to give you any explanations. I just run; you follow me. The house is not on fire, but
the moment you are outside you don't have to ask me why I lied. The meaning is there; the sky is there.
Now you thank me. Any lie will do. The lie was just a device; it was just a device to bring you outside. It
did not cause the outside to be there.
Every religion is based on a lie device. All methods are lies; they just create a situation, they are not
causal. New devices can be created; new religions can be created. Old devices become flat, an old lie
becomes flat, and new ones are needed. You have been told so many times that the house is on fire when it
is not, that the lie has become useless.
Now someone has to create a new device.
If something is the cause of something else, it is never useless. But an old device is always useless; new
devices are needed. That is why every new prophet will have to struggle with the old prophets. He is doing
the same work that they are doing, but he will have to oppose their teachings because he will have to deny
old devices that have become flat and meaningless.
All the great ones--Buddha, Christ, Mahavira--have, out of compassion, created great lies just to push
you out of the house. If you can be pushed out of your mind through any device, that is all that is needed.
Your mind is the imprisonment, your mind is fatal; it is the slavery.
As I have said, this dilemma is bound to happen--the nature of life is such. You will have to learn to
narrow the mind. This narrowing will be helpful when you move outward, but it will be fatal inside. It will
be utilitarian with others; it will be suicidal with oneself.
You have to exist with others and with yourself. Any life that is one-sided is crippled. You must exist
among others with a conditioned mind, but you must exist with yourself with a totally unconditioned
consciousness. Society creates a narrowed consciousness, but consciousness itself means expansion; it is
unlimited. Both are needs, and both should be fulfilled.
I call a person wise who can fulfill both needs. Either extreme is unwise; either extreme is harmful. So
live in the world with the mind, with your conditioning, but live with yourself without mind, without
training. Use your mind as a means, do not make it an end; come out of it the moment you have the
opportunity. The moment you are alone, come out of it, take it off. Then celebrate the moment; celebrate the
existence itself, being itself.
Just to be is such a great celebration if you know how to take the conditioning off. This "taking off" you
will learn through Dynamic Meditation. It will not be caused; it will come to you uncaused. Meditation will
create a situation in which you will come to the unknown; by and by you will be pushed from your habitual,
mechanical, robotlike personality. Be courageous: practice Dynamic Meditation vigorously and all else will
follow. It will not be your doing, it will be a happening.
You cannot bring the divine, but you can hinder its coming. You cannot bring the sun into the house, but
you can close the door. Negatively, mind can do much; positively, nothing. Everything positive is a gift,
everything positive is a blessing; it comes to you, while everything negative is your own doing.
Meditation, and all meditation devices, can do one thing: push you away from your negative hindrances.
It can bring you out of the imprisonment that is the mind, and when you have come out you will laugh. It
was so easy to come out, it was right there. Only one step was needed. But we go on in a circle and the one
step is always missed... the one step that can bring you to the center.
You go on in a circle on the periphery, repeating the same thing; somewhere the continuity must be
broken. That is all that can be done by any meditation method. If the continuity is broken, if you become
discontinuous with your past, then that very moment is the explosion! In that very moment you are centered,
centered in your being, and then you know all that has always been yours, all that has just been awaiting
you.

The purpose of life is to become conscious. It is not only the purpose of yoga; the very evolution of life
itself is to become more and more conscious. But yoga means something still more.
The evolution of life is to become more and more conscious, but the consciousness is always other
oriented: you are conscious of some thing, some object. Yoga means to be evolving in the dimension where
there is no object and only consciousness remains. Yoga is the method of evolving toward pure
consciousness; not being conscious of something, but being consciousness itself.
When you are conscious of something, you are not conscious of being conscious. Your consciousness
has become focused on something; your attention is not at the source of consciousness itself. In yoga the
effort is to become conscious of both the object and the source. The consciousness becomes double
arrowed. You must be aware of the object, and you must be simultaneously aware of the subject.
Consciousness must become a double arrowed bridge. The subject must not be lost, it must not become
forgotten when you are focused on the object.
This is the first step in yoga. The second step is to drop both the subject and the object and just be
conscious. This pure consciousness is the aim of yoga.
Even without yoga man grows toward becoming more and more conscious, but yoga adds something,
contributes something, to this evolution of consciousness. It changes many things and transforms many
things. The first transformation is a double-arrowed awareness, remembering yourself at the very moment
that there is something else to be conscious of.
The dilemma is this: either you are conscious of some object or you are unconscious. If there are no
outside objects, you fall into a sleep; objects are needed in order for you to be conscious. When you are
totally unoccupied you feel sleepy -- you need some object to be conscious of -- but when you have too
many objects to be conscious of, you may feel a certain sleeplessness. That is why a person who is too
obsessed with thoughts cannot go into sleep. Objects continue to be there, thoughts continue to be there. He
cannot become unconscious; thoughts go on demanding his attention. And this is how we exist.
With new objects you become more conscious. That is why there is a lust for the new, a longing for the
new. The old becomes boring. The moment you have lived with some object for a while, you become
unconscious of it. You have accepted it, now your attention is not needed; you become bored. For example,
you may not have been conscious of your wife for years because you have taken her for granted. You no
longer see her face, you can't remember the color of her eyes; for years you have not really been attentive.
Only when she dies will you again become aware that she was there. That is why wives and husbands
become bored. Any object that is not calling your attention continuously creates boredom.
In the same way, a mantra, a repeated sound vibration, causes deep sleep. When a particular mantra is
being repeated continuously, you are bored. There is nothing mysterious about it. Constantly repeating a
particular word bores you, you cannot live with it anymore. Now you will begin to feel sleepy, you will go
into a sort of sleep; you will become unconscious. The whole method of hypnosis, in fact, depends upon
boredom. If your mind can be bored with something then you go into a sleep, sleep can be induced.
Our whole consciousness depends on new objects. That is why there is so much longing for the new --
for new sensations, a new dress, a new house -- for anything that is new, even if it is not better. With
something different, you feel a sudden upsurge of consciousness.
Because life is an evolution of consciousness -- this is good. As far as life is concerned, it is good. If a
society is longing for new sensations, life progresses, but if it settles down with the old, not asking for the
new, it becomes dead; consciousness cannot evolve.
For example, in the East we try to be content with things as they are. This creates a boredom because
nothing is ever new. Then for centuries everything goes on continuously as it is. You are just bored. Of
course, you can sleep better -- the West cannot sleep; insomnia is bound to exist when you are constantly
asking for the new -- but there is no evolution. And these are the two things that seem to happen: either the
whole society becomes sleepy and dead, as has happened in the East, or else the society becomes sleepless,
as has happened in the West.
Neither is good. You need a mind that can be aware even when there are no new objects. Really, you
need a consciousness that is not bound with the new, not bound with the object. If it is bound with the
object, it is going to be bound with the new. You need a consciousness that is not bound with the object at
all, which is beyond object. Then you have freedom: you can go to sleep when you like, and you can be
awake when you like; no object is needed to help you. You become free, really free, from the objective
world.
The moment you are beyond object you go beyond subject also, because they both exist co-jointly.
Really, subjectivity and objectivity are two poles of one thing. When there is an object you are a subject, but
if you can be aware without the object, there is no subject, no self.
This is to be understood very deeply: when the object is lost and you can be conscious without objects --
just conscious -- then the subject is also lost. It cannot remain there. It cannot! Both are lost, and there is
simply consciousness, unbounded consciousness. Now there are no boundaries. Neither the object is the
boundary nor the subject.
Buddha used to say that when you are in meditation there is no self, no atman, because the very
awareness of one's self isolates you from everything else. If you are still there, objects are still there. "I am,"
but "I" cannot exist in total loneliness; "I" exists in relationship with the outside world. "I" is a relata. Then
the self, the "I am," is just something inside you that exists in relationship to something outside. But if the
outside is not there this inside dissolves; then there is simple, spontaneous consciousness.
This is what yoga is for, this is what yoga means. Yoga is the science of freeing yourself from subject
and object boundaries, and unless you are free from these boundaries, you will fall into either the unbalance
of the East or the unbalance of the West.
If you want contentment, peace of mind, silence, sleep, then it is good to remain with the same objects
continuously. For centuries and centuries there should be no visible change. Then you are at ease, you can
sleep better, but this is nothing spiritual; you lose much. The very urge to grow is lost, the very urge for
adventure is lost, the very urge to inquire and to find is lost. Really, you begin to vegetate, you become
stagnant.
If you change this, then you become dynamic but also diseased: you become dynamic but tense,
dynamic but mad. You begin to find the new, to inquire for the new, but you are in a whirlwind. The new
begins to happen, but you are lost.
If you lose your objectivity, you become too subjective and dreamy, but if you become too obsessed
with objects, you lose the subjective. Both situations are unbalanced. The East has tried one; the West has
tried the other.
And now the East is turning Western and the West is turning Eastern. In the East the attraction is for
Western technology, Western science, Western rationalism. Einstein, Aristotle, and Russell have taken hold
of the Eastern mind, while in the West quite the opposite is happening: Buddha, zen and yoga have become
more significant. This is a miracle. The East is turning communist, Marxist, materialist, and the West is
beginning to think in terms of expanding consciousness -- meditation, spirituality, ecstasy. The wheel can
turn and we can change our burdens. It will be illuminating for a moment, but then the whole nonsense will
begin again.
The East has failed in one way and the West has failed in another way, because they both tried denying
one part of the mind. You have to transcend both parts and not be concerned with one while denying the
other. Mind is a totality; you can either transcend it totally or you cannot transcend it. If you go on denying
one part, the denied part will take its revenge. And, really, the denied part in the East is taking its revenge in
the East, and the denied part in the West is taking its revenge in the West.
You can never go beyond the denied; it is there, and it goes on gathering more and more strength. The
very moment when the part you have accepted succeeds is the moment of failure. Nothing fails like success.
With any partial success -- with the success of one part of you -- you are bound to go into deeper failure.
That which you have gained becomes unconscious and that which you have lost comes into awareness.
Absence is felt more. If you lose a tooth, your tongue becomes aware of the absence and goes to the
absent tooth. It has never gone there before -- never -- but now you can't stop it; it continually moves to the
vacant place to feel the tooth that is not there.
In the same way, when one part of the mind succeeds, you become aware of the failure of the other part
-- the part that could have been and is not. Now the East has become conscious of the foolishness of not
being scientific: it is the reason why we are poor, it is the reason why we are "no one." This absence is being
felt now and the East has begun to turn Western, while the West is feeling its own foolishness, its lack of
integration.
Yoga means a total science of man. It is not simply religion. It is the total science of man, the total
transcendence of all the parts. And when you transcend parts, you become whole. The whole is not just an
accumulation of the parts; it is not a mechanical thing in which all the parts are put in alignment and then
there is a whole. No, it is more than a mechanical thing; it is like something artistic.
You can divide a poem into words but then the words mean nothing, and when the whole is there, it is
more than words; it has its own identity. It has gaps as well as words, and sometimes gaps are more
meaningful than words. A poem becomes poetry only when it says something that has not really been said,
when something about it transcends all the parts. If you divide and analyze it, then you have only the parts,
and the transcendental flower that was really the thing is lost.
So consciousness is a wholeness. By denying a part you lose something -- something that was really
significant. And you gain nothing; you gain only extremes. Every extreme becomes a disease, every
extreme becomes an illness inside, then you go on and on in turmoil; there is an inner anarchy.
Yoga is the science of transcending anarchy, the science of making your consciousness whole -- and you
become whole only when you transcend parts. So yoga is neither religion nor science. It is both. Or, it
transcends both. You can say it is a scientific religion or a religious science. That is why yoga can be used
by anyone belonging to any religion; it can be used by anyone with any type of mind.
In India, all the religions that have developed have very different -- in fact, antagonistic -- philosophies,
concepts, perceptions. They have nothing in common. Between Hinduism and Jainism there is nothing in
common; between Hinduism and Buddhism there is nothing in common. There is only one common thing
that none of these religions can deny: yoga.
Buddha says, "There is no body, there is no soul," but he cannot say, "There is no yoga." Mahavira says,
"There is no body, but there is a soul," but he cannot say, "There is no yoga." Hinduism says, "There is
body, there is soul -- and there is yoga." Yoga remains constant. Even Christianity cannot deny it; even
Mohammedanism cannot deny it.
In fact, even someone who is totally atheistically oriented cannot deny yoga because yoga doesn't make
it a precondition to believe in God. Yoga has no preconditions; yoga is absolutely experiential. When the
concept of God is mentioned -- and in the most ancient yoga books it was never mentioned at all -- it is
mentioned only as a method. It can be used as a hypothesis -- if it is helpful to someone it can be used -- but
it is not an absolute condition. That is why Buddha can be a yogi without God, without the Vedas, without
any belief. Without any faith, any so-called faith, he can be a yogi.
So for theists, or even for an atheist, yoga can become a common ground. It can become a bridge
between science and religion. It is rational and irrational simultaneously. The methodology is totally
rational, but through the methodology you move deep into the mystery of the irrational. The whole process
is so rational -- every step is so rational, so scientific, it is so logical -- that you just have to do it and
everything else follows.
Jung mentions that in the nineteenth century no Westerner concerned with psychology could conceive of
anything beyond the conscious mind or below the conscious mind, because mind means consciousness. So
how can there be an unconscious mind? It is absurd, non-scientific. Then, in the twentieth century, as
science learned more about the unconscious, a theory of the unconscious mind developed. Then, when they
went even deeper, they had to accept the idea of a collective unconscious, not only an individual one. It
looked absurd -- mind means something individual, so how could there be a collective mind -- but now they
have even accepted the concept of the collective mind.
These are the first three divisions of Buddhist psychology, of Buddhist yoga -- the first three. Then
Buddha goes on dividing into one hundred and sixty more divisions. Jung says, "Before we denied these
three, now we accept them. It may be that others also exist. We have only to proceed step by step, we have
only to go into it further." Jung's approach is very rational, one deeply rooted in the West.
With yoga, you have to proceed rationally, but only in order to jump into the irrational. The end is
bound to be irrational. That which you can understand -- the rational -- cannot be the source because it is
finite. The source must be greater than you. The source from which you have come, from which everything
has come, the whole universe has come -- and where it goes down and disappears again -- must be more
than this. The manifestation must be less than the source. A rational mind can feel and understand the
manifested, but the unmanifested remains behind.
Yoga does not insist that one must be rational. It says, "It is rational to conceive of something irrational.
It is rational, really, to conceive of the boundaries of the rational." A true, authentic mind always knows the
limitations of reason, always knows that reason ends somewhere. Anyone who is authentically rational has
to come to a point where the irrational is felt. If you proceed with reason toward the ultimate, the boundary
will be felt.
Einstein felt it; Wittgenstein felt it. Wittgenstein's TRACTATUS is one of the most rational books ever
written; he is one of the most rationalistic minds. He goes on talking about existence in a very logical way, a
very rational way. His expressions -- words, language, everything -- is rational, but then he says, "There are
some things about which, there is a point beyond which, nothing can be said, and I must remain silent about
it." Then he writes, "That which cannot be said must not be said."
The whole edifice falls: the whole edifice! Wittgenstein was trying to be rational about the entire
phenomenon of life and existence, and then suddenly a point comes and he says, "Now, beyond this point,
nothing can be said." This says something -- something very significant. Something is there now and
nothing can be said about it. Now there is a point that cannot be defined, where all definitions simply fall
down.
Whenever there has been an authentic, logical mind, it comes to this point. Einstein died a mystic -- and
more of a mystic than your so-called mystics, because if you are a mystic without ever having tried to
follow the path of reason you can never be deep in mysticism. You have not really known the boundaries. I
have seen mystics who go on talking about God as a logical concept, as an argument. There have been
Christian mystics who have been trying to "prove" God. What nonsense! If even God can be proved, you
leave nothing unproved, and the unproved is the source.
One who has experienced something of the divine will not try to prove it because the very effort to
prove shows that one has never been in contact with the original source of life -- which is unprovable, which
cannot be proved. The whole cannot be proved by the part. For example, my hand cannot prove my
existence. My hand cannot be more than me; it cannot cover me. It is foolishness to try. But if the hand can
cover itself completely, it is more than enough; the moment the hand knows itself, it also knows that it is
rooted in something more, that it is constantly one with something more. It is there because that "more" is
also there.
If I die, my hand will also die; it only existed because of me. The whole remains unproved; only the
parts are known. We cannot prove the whole, but we can feel it; the hand cannot prove me, but the hand can
feel me. It can go deep inside itself, and when it reaches the depths, it is me.
The so-called mystics who are annoyed with reason are not real mystics. A real mystic is never annoyed
with reason; he can play with it. And he can play with reason because he knows reason cannot destroy the
mystery of life. So-called mystics and religious people who are afraid of reason, of logic, of argument, are
really afraid of themselves. Any argument against them may create inner doubts; it may help their inner
doubts to emerge. They are afraid of themselves.
The Christian mystic Tertullian says, "I believe in God because I cannot prove him; I believe in God
because it is impossible to believe." This is how a real mystic will feel: "It is impossible; that is why I
believe." If it is possible, then there is no need to believe. It becomes just a concept, an ordinary concept.
This is what mystics have always meant by faith, by belief. It is not something intellectual, it is not a
concept; it is a jump into the impossible. But you can only jump into the mysterious from the edge of
reason, never before. How can you do it before? You can jump only when you have stretched reason to its
logical extremes. You have come to a point that reason cannot go beyond, and the beyond remains. Now
you know that reason cannot take a single step further and yet the "further" remains. Even if you decide to
remain with reason, a boundary is created. You know that existence is beyond the boundary of reason, so
even if you do not go beyond this boundary, you become a mystic. Even if you do not take the jump you
become a mystic because you have known something, you have encountered something that was not
rational at all.
All that reason can know you have known. Now something is encountered that reason cannot know. If
you take the jump, you have to leave reason behind; you cannot take the jump with reason itself. This is
what faith is. Faith is not against reason; it is beyond it. It is not antirational; it is irrational.
Yoga is the method of bringing you to the extreme limit of reason -- and not only a method to bring you
to the extreme, but also a method to take the jump.
How to take the jump? Einstein, for example, would have flowered like a Buddha if he had known
something about meditative methods. He was just on the verge, many times in his life he came to the point
from which a jump was possible. But again and again he missed: he was entangled, again, in reason. And in
the end, he was frustrated by his whole life of reason.
The same thing could have happened with Buddha. He also had a very rational mind, but there was
something possible for him, a method that could be used. Not only does reason have its methods,
irrationality also has methods. Reason has its own methods; irrationality has its own methods.
Yoga is ultimately concerned with irrational methods; only in the beginning can rational methods be
used. They are just to persuade you, to push you, to persuade your reason to move toward the limit. And if
you have come to the limit, you will take the ultimate jump.
Gurdjieff worked with a certain group on some deep, irrational methods. He was working with a group
of seekers and using a particular irrational method. He used to call it a Stop Exercise. For example, you
would be with him and suddenly he would say, "Stop!" Then everyone had to stop as he is -- totally stop. If
the hand was in a certain place, the hand must stop there. If the eyes were open, they would have to remain
open; if the mouth was open -- you were just about to say something -- the mouth would have to remain as it
was. No movement!
This method begins with the body. If there is no movement in the body, suddenly there is no movement
in the mind. The two are associated: you cannot move your body without some inner movement of the mind,
and you cannot stop your body totally without stopping the inner movement of the mind. Body and mind are
not two things; they are one energy. The energy is more dense in the body than it is in the mind; the density
differs, the frequency of the wavelength differs, but it is the same wave, the same flow of energy.
Seekers were practicing this Stop Exercise continually for one month. One day Gurdjieff was in his tent
and three seekers were walking through a dry canal that was on the grounds. It was a dry canal; no water
was flowing in it. Suddenly, from his tent, Gurdjieff cried, "Stop!" Everyone on the bank of the canal
stopped. The three who were in the canal also stopped. It was dry, so there was no problem.
Then suddenly there was an onrush of water. Someone had opened the water supply and water rushed
into the canal. When it had come up to the necks of the three, one of them jumped out of the canal thinking,
"Gurdjieff does not know what is happening. He is in his tent and he is unaware of the fact that water has
come into the canal." The man thought, "I must jump out. Now it is irrational to be here," and he jumped
out.
The other two remained in the canal as the water became higher and higher. Finally it reached their
noses and the second man thought, "This is the limit! I have not come here to die. I have come here to know
eternal life, not to lose this one," and he jumped out of the canal.
The third man remained. The same problem faced him, too, but he decided to remain because Gurdjieff
had said that this was an irrational exercise and if it was done with reason, the whole thing would be
destroyed. He thought, "Okay, I accept death, but I cannot stop this exercise," and he remained there.
Now water was flowing above his head. Gurdjieff jumped out of his tent and into the canal and brought
him out. He was just on the verge of death. But when he revived, he was a transformed man. He was not the
same one who was standing and doing the exercise; he was transformed totally. He had known something;
he had taken the jump.
Where is the limit? If you continue with reason, you may miss. You go on falling back. Sometimes one
has to suddenly take a step that leads you beyond. That step becomes a transformation; the division is
transcended. Whether you say that this division is between the conscious and the unconscious, between
reason and nonreason, science and religion, or East and West -- division must be transcended. That is what
yoga is: a transcendence. Then you can come back to reason, but you will be transformed. You can even
reason things out, but you will be beyond reason.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #2
Chapter title: Non-Doing Through Doing
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF02
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Meditation is always passive; the very essence of it is passive. It cannot be active because the very
nature of it is non-doing. If you are doing something, your very doing disturbs the whole thing; your very
doing, your very "activeness," creates the disturbance.
Non-doing is meditation, but when I say non-doing is meditation I do not mean that you need not do
anything. Even to achieve this non-doing, one has to do much. But this doing is not meditation. It is only a
stepping stone, only a jumping board. All "doing" is just a jumping board, not meditation.
You are just on the door, on the steps.... The door is non-doing, but to reach the non-doing state of mind
one has to do much. But one should not confuse this doing with meditation.
Life energy works in contradictions. Life exists as a dialectic: it is not a simple movement. It is not
flowing like a river, it is dialectical. With each move life creates its own opposite and through the struggle
with the opposite, it moves forward. With each new movement the thesis creates the antithesis. And this
goes on continuously: thesis creating antithesis, being merged with antithesis, and becoming a synthesis that
then becomes the new thesis; then again, there is the antithesis.
By a dialectical movement, I mean it is not a simple straight movement; it is a movement divided unto
itself, dividing itself, creating the opposite, then meeting with the opposite again. Then, again, dividing into
the opposite. And the same thing applies to meditation, because it is the deepest thing in life.
If I say to you, "Just relax," it is impossible because you do not know what to do. So many pseudo
teachers of relaxation continue saying, "Just relax. Don't do anything; just relax." Then what are you going
to do? You can just lie down, but that is not relaxation. The whole inner turmoil remains, and now a new
conflict is there - to relax. Something over and above is added. The whole nonsense is there, the whole
turmoil is there, with something added - to relax. A new tension is now added to all the old tensions.
So a person who is trying to live a relaxed life is the most tense person possible. He is bound to be
because he has not understood the dialectical flow of life. He is thinking that life is a straight flow; you can
just tell yourself to relax and you will relax.
It is not possible. So if you come to me, I will never tell you to just relax. First be tense, as utterly tense
as possible. Be tense totally! First let your complete organism be tense, and go on being tense to the
optimum, to your fullest possibility. And then, suddenly, you will feel a relaxation setting in. You have done
whatsoever you could do, now the life energy will create the opposite.
You have brought tension to a peak. Now there is nothing further; you cannot go on. The whole energy
has been devoted to tension, but you cannot continue with this tension indefinitely; it has to dissolve. Soon
it will begin to dissolve; now be a witness to it.
Through being tense you have come to the verge, to the jumping point; that is why you cannot continue.
If you continue further, you may just burst and die. The optimum point has been reached, now the life
energy will relax by itself.
It relaxes. Now be aware and see this relaxation setting in. Each limb of the body, each muscle of the
body, each nerve of the body is just going to innocently relax without anything being done on your part.
You are not doing anything to relax it; it is relaxing. You will begin to feel many points in the organism
relaxing. The whole organism will just be a crowd of relaxing points. Just be aware.
This awareness is meditation. But it is a nondoing; you are not doing anything because being aware is
not an act. It is not an act at all; it is your nature, a very intrinsic quality of your being. You are awareness.
It is your unawareness that is your achievement, and you have achieved it with much effort.
So to me, meditation has two steps: first, the active, which is not really meditation at all, and second, the
completely nonactive, the passive awareness that is really meditation. Awareness is always passive, and the
moment you become active you lose your awareness. It is possible to be active and aware only when
awareness has come to such a point that now there is no need of meditation to achieve it, or to know it, or to
feel it.
When meditation has become useless, you simply throw meditation. Now you are aware. Only then can
you be both aware and active, otherwise not. As long as meditation is still needed, you will not be able to be
aware during activity. But when even meditation is not needed....
If you have become meditation, you will no longer need it. Then you can be active, but even in that
activity you are always the passive onlooker. Now you are never the actor: you are always a witnessing
consciousness.
Consciousness is passive... and meditation is bound to be passive, because it is just a door to
consciousness, perfect consciousness. So when people talk about "active" meditation, they are wrong.
Meditation is passivity. You may need some activity, some doing, to get to it - that can be understood - but
this is not because meditation itself is active. Rather, it is because you have been active through so many
lives, activity has become so much a part and parcel of your mind, that you will even need activity to reach
nonactivity. You have been so involved in activity that you cannot just drop it. So persons like Krishnamurti
may continue to say, "Just drop it," but then you will continue to ask how to drop it. He will say, "Do not
ask how. I am saying: just drop it! There is no 'how' to it. There is no need for any 'how'."
And he is right in a way. Passive awareness or passive meditation has no "how" about it. It cannot have,
because if there is any "how" then it cannot be passive. But he is wrong, too, because he has not taken the
listener into account. He is talking about himself.
Meditation is without any "how," without any technology, without any technique. So Krishnamurti is
absolutely correct, but the listener has not been taken into account. The listener has nothing but activity in
him; to him everything is activity. So when you say, "Meditation is passive, nonactive, choiceless; you can
just be in it. There is no need of any effort; it is effortless," you are just speaking a language that the listener
is unable to understand. He understands the linguistic part of it - that is what makes it so difficult. He says,
"Intellectually, I understand completely. Whatever you are saying is completely understood." But he is
unable to understand the meaning.
There is nothing mysterious about Krishnamurti's teachings. He is one of the least mystical teachers.
Nothing is mysterious; everything is obviously clear, exact, analyzed, logical, rational, so anyone can
understand it. And this has become one of the greatest barriers because the listener thinks he understands.
He understands the linguistic part but he does not understand the language of passivity.
He understands what is being said to him - the words. He listens to them, he understands them, he
knows the meaning of those words. He correlates; a whole correlated picture comes to his mind. What is
being said is understood; there is an intellectual communication. But he does not understand the language of
passivity. He cannot understand. From where he is, he cannot understand. He can understand only the
language of action, activity.
So I have to talk about activity. And I have to lead you through activity to the point where you can just
jump into nonactivity. The activity must come to an extreme point, to a verge point, where it becomes
impossible for you to be active - because if activity is still possible, you will continue.
Your activity must be exhausted. Whatever you can do, you must be allowed to do. Whatsoever you can
do you must be pushed to do it to the very point where you, yourself, cry, "Now I cannot do anything;
everything has been done. Now nothing is possible; no effort is possible. I am exhausted."
Then I say, "Now, just drop!" This dropping can be communicated. You are on the verge, you are ready
to drop; now you can understand the language of passivity. Before this, you could not understand. You were
too full of activity.
You have never been to the extreme point of activity. Things can be dropped only from the extreme,
never from the middle. You cannot drop it. You can drop sex - if you have been totally in it, you can just
drop it; otherwise not. You can drop everything that you have gone to the very limit of, where there is no
further to go and no reason to go backward. You can drop it because you have known it totally.
When you have known something totally, it becomes boring to you. You may want to go into it further,
but if there is no further to go, then you will just "stop dead." There is no going back, and there is no
possibility of going on further; you are at the point where everything ends. Then you can just drop, you can
be passive. And the moment you are passive, meditation happens; it flowers, it comes to you. It is a
"dropping dead" into passivity.
So to me, it is effort that leads to no effort; it is action that leads to no action; it is mind that leads to
meditation; it is this very material world that leads to enlightenment. Life is a dialectical process; its
opposite is death. It is to be used, you cannot just drop it.
Use it, and you will be thrown into the opposite. And be aware: when you are thrown on the waves, be
aware. It is easy. When you come from a tense climax to the point of relaxation, it is very easy to be aware,
very easy. It is not difficult then because to be aware you have to just be passive, just be witnessing.
Even the effort of witnessing should not be there; it is not needed. You are so exhausted through activity
that you will feel, "Damn it all - enough!" Then meditation is, and you are not. And once tasted, the taste is
never lost again. It remains with you wherever you move, wherever you go.
It remains with you. Then it will penetrate your activities also. There will be activity, and there, in the
very center of your being, there will be a passive silence. On the circumference, the whole world; in the
center, the Brahman. On the circumference, every activity; in the center, only silence. But a very pregnant
silence, not a dead silence, because out of this silence everything is born, even the activity.
Out of this silence, every creativity comes; it is very pregnant. So whenever I say "silence," I do not
mean the silence of a cemetery, the silence of a house when no one is there. No, I mean the silence of a
seed, the silence of a mother's womb, the silence of the roots underground. There is much hidden
potentiality that will be coming soon.
Activity will be there but now the actor is no more, the doer is no more. This is the search; this is the
seeking.
There are two antagonistic traditions: yoga and SAMKHYA. Yoga says that nothing can be achieved
without effort. The whole of yoga, the whole of Patanjali's yoga, raja yoga, is nothing but effort. And this
has been the main current, because effort can be understood by many. Activity can be understood, so yoga
has been the main current. But sometimes there have been freaks who say, "Nothing is to be done." A
Nagarjuna, a Krishnamurti, a Huang Po - some freaks! They say, "Nothing is to be done. Do not do
anything. Do not ask about the method." This is the tradition of samkhya.
There are really only two religions in the world: yoga and samkhya. But samkhya has always appealed
only to a very few individuals here and there, so it is not talked about much. That is why Krishnamurti
appears to be very novel and original. He is not, but he seems to be because samkhya is so unknown.
Only yoga is known. There are ashrams and training centers and yogis all over the world. Yoga is
known: the tradition of effort. And samkhya is not known at all. Krishnamurti has not said a single word
that is new, but because we are not familiar with the tradition of samkhya, it appears to be new. Only
because of our blissful ignorance are there revolutionaries.
Samkhya means knowledge, knowing. Samkhya says, "Only knowing is enough; only awareness is
enough."
But these two traditions are just dialectical. To me, they are not opposed. To me, they are dialectical and
a synthesis is possible. That synthesis I call effortlessness through effort: yoga through samkhya and
samkhya through yoga - non-doing through doing. In this age, neither of these two opposite, dialectical
traditions, by itself, will help. You can use yoga to achieve samkhya - and you will have to use yoga to
achieve samkhya.
If you can understand Hegelian dialectics, this whole thing will be clear to you. The concept of
dialectical movement has not been used by anyone since Marx, and he used it in a very non-Hegelian way.
He used it for material evolution, for society, for classes, to show how society progresses through classes,
through class struggle. Marx said, "Hegel was standing on his head, and I have put him on his legs again."
But, actually, the contrary is the case. Hegel was standing on his legs; Marx put him on his head. And
because of Marx, the very pregnant concept of dialectics became contaminated with communism. But the
concept is very beautiful, very meaningful; it has much depth in it. Hegel says, "The progress of an idea, the
progress of consciousness, is dialectical. Consciousness progresses through dialectics."
I say any life force progresses through dialectics and meditation is the deepest phenomenon happening,
the explosion of the life force. It is deeper than an atomic explosion because in an atomic explosion only a
particle of matter explodes, but in meditation a living cell, a living existence, a living being, explodes.
This explosion comes through dialectics. So use action, and remember non-action. You will have to do
much, but remember that all this doing is just to achieve the state in which nothing is done.
Samkhya and yoga both appear simple. Krishnamurti is not difficult; neither is Vivekananda. They are
simple, because they have chosen one part of the dialectics; then they appear very consistent. Krishnamurti
is very consistent, absolutely consistent. In forty years of talking he has not uttered a single inconsistent
word because he has chosen a part of the whole process, the opposite of which is denied. Vivekananda is
also consistent: he has chosen the other part.
I may look very inconsistent. Or, you can say, I am only consistent in my inconsistencies. Use
dialectics: relax through tension - meditate through action.
That is why I talk about fasting. It is an action, a very deep action. Taking food is not so great an activity
as not taking it. You take it, and then you forget about it; it is not much of an activity. But if you are not
taking food, it is a big act; you cannot forget it. The whole body remembers it; each single cell demands it.
The whole body gets in a turmoil. It is very active - active to the very core. It is not passive.
Dancing is not passive, it is very active. In the end you become movement; the body is forgotten, only
movement remains. Really, dancing is a most unearthly thing, a most unearthly art, because it is just rhythm
in movement. It is absolutely immaterial so you cannot hold on to it. You can hold on to the dancer, but
never to the dancing. It just withers in the cosmos. It is there, and then it is not there; it is not here, and then
suddenly it is here - it comes out of nothing and it is here - it comes out of nothing and then, again, goes into
nothing.
A dancer is sitting here; there is no dancing in him. But if a poet is sitting here, poetry may be in him;
poetry can exist in the poet. A painter is here: in a very subtle way, painting is present. Before he paints,
painting is there. But with a dancer nothing is present, and if it is present, then he is simply a technician and
not a dancer. The movement is a new phenomenon coming in. The dancer becomes just a vehicle: the
movement takes over.
One of the greatest dancers of this century was Nijinsky, and in the end he just went mad. He may have
been the greatest dancer in all of history, but the movement became so much for him that the dancer was
lost in it. In his last years he was unable to control it. He could begin dancing at any moment, anywhere, and
when he was dancing, no one could say when it would end. It might even continue the whole night.
When friends asked him, "What has become of you? You begin, and then there is no end," Nijinsky said,
"'I' am only in the beginning. Then something takes over and 'I' am no more - and who dances, I do not
know."
He went mad. He was in a madhouse; he died in a madhouse.
Take any activity and go to the limit where there is either madness or meditation. Lukewarm search will
not do.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #3
Chapter title: "Chaotic" Meditation
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF03
Audio: No
Video: No
QUESTION: IT IS AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE THAT YOUR MEDITATION TECHNIQUE OF
RELEASE THROUGH INTENSE CHAOTIC BREATHING EVOLVED AT THE SAME TIME THAT CERTAIN
CHAOTIC THERAPY TECHNIQUES WERE HAPPENING IN THE WEST, SUCH AS R.D.LAING'S THEORY
THAT SCHIZOPHRENIA IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE FOUGHT, BUT SOMETHING TO BE EXPERIENCED
VOLUNTARILY. LAING HAS SAID THAT YOU CANNOT BE SANE UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN NON-SANE
OR INSANE. THEN THERE IS WILHELM REICH'S USE OF SEXUAL ENERGY TO RELEASE BODY
BLOCKS THAT COINCIDE WITH NEUROSIS; THIS TECHNIQUE WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THE
THERAPY WHICH IS CALLED BIO-ENERGETICS, AS WELL AS THE PRIMAL SCREAM THERAPY. IS
THERE A SIGNIFICANCE IN THIS COINCIDENCE?
Man as such is neurotic. It is not that just a few men are neurotic, but humanity is neurotic. It is not a
question of correction for a few persons, it is a question of curing humanity as such. Neurosis is the
"normal" condition. As you are born, you are born neurotic. There are reasons for it. Understand the reasons
which make man "normally neurotic."
The neurosis is inborn. The first reason is that man is the only animal which is born not totally evolved
in the womb. Every human birth is immature. Except for man, every animal is born mature; the mother is
not really very much needed. The human child is totally helpless. Without mother, without family, without
parents there, he cannot survive. He is born unmatured.
Scientists say the nine months is only half the necessary period. The human child needs eighteen months
in the womb. But there are problems: women cannot carry a child for eighteen months. Thus, every birth is
abortive. This happens because man is the only animal who is standing on two feet, erect. The womb, the
human body, was not made for an erect posture. This erect posture creates problems, and the child has to be
born before he is really mature and ready to be born. That gives a neurotic beginning - an unevolved child.
Secondly, even if the situation could be changed, there would be problems. And some day we will be
able to change it. When we are able to give a scientifically created womb to the future humanity, then only
will we be able to change it. But even then there will be problems. The second problem, which goes even
deeper than physiology, is a psychological one. No animal is cultured, but man is cultured. He has to pass
through training, conditioning. He is not allowed just to be whatsoever he is, he has to be moulded into a
particular pattern. That pattern creates neurosis.
You are not allowed to be yourself. The society gives you a pattern, a mold. You are cultured into a
certain shape and form. That means repression. The remaining part of your being is repressed. Only a
fragment is allowed to be expressed. This creates a division, a schizophrenic. A fragment of your mind is
allowed to be expressed at the cost of the whole. The major part is not allowed to be expressed. It is not
even allowed to be alive. It must move into the darker corners of your being.
But it remains there, and then there is a constant conflict. The fragment that society allows and the major
part which society doesn't allow are in tension, in conflict - in constant internal conflict. So you are against
yourself: that is the neurosis.
No man is for himself; every man is against himself. Man is against himself. That is how society
cultures you, cultivates you, conditions you. This repression has many implications. You can never be at
ease because your major part is not even allowed to exist, not even allowed to be conscious. The major part
of your being is in bondage. And remember that a fragment can never be free. Can you make a branch of a
tree free while the whole tree is in slavery? The fragment is basically part of the whole, so even the
fragment enjoys only a very illusionary freedom. And the part that is suppressed goes on fighting for
expression.
Life needs expression, life is expression. If you do not allow life, then you are creating, accumulating,
explosive forces. They will explode and you will go to bits. This division in you is schizophrenia. So every
man is schizophrenic, divided - divided against himself. He cannot be at ease; he cannot be silent; he cannot
be blissful. Hell is always there, and unless you become whole, you cannot be freed from this hell.
So if you understand me, man as such is schizophrenic, neurotic. So something has to be done which
releases this neurosis, brings your divided parts nearer. The unexpressed has to be expressed, and this
constant repression of your mind, of the conscious upon the unconscious, has to be withdrawn.
All the old meditation techniques do not take this into consideration; that is why they have been failures.
Meditation techniques have been in existence for a long time; they have been known throughout history, but
a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mahavira, have all been failures. I don't mean that they themselves didn't realize. They
realized, but they were exceptions, and exceptions only prove rules. Buddha was enlightened, but he
couldn't help the greater portion of humanity to be enlightened. He was simply an exception.
Why could religion not be a great help? The reason is this: we have been taking man for granted, and we
were teaching meditative techniques to help man as he is. But all these techniques can help only to a certain
extent, and only on the surface. The inner division remains; you have not done anything to dissolve it.
For example, there are zen techniques, and Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation, and other
techniques. They can help you to a certain extent. They can calm you down, your surface can become more
peaceful, but nothing happens to your inner being. It cannot! And, in a way, that surface calm is dangerous
because in one way or another you will explode again. Basically nothing has happened. You have simply
trained your conscious mind to be in a more still state.
You can still your mind easily through mantras, through constant chanting, through many things.
Anything which creates an inner boredom will help you to calm down. For example, if you constantly repeat
"Ram Ram Ram," this constant repetition creates a certain sleepiness, a boredom, and your mind begins to
fall into sleep. You can feel that sleepiness as calmness, as stillness, but it is not. Really, it is a sort of
dullness. But you can tolerate your life more through it; at least on the surface you will feel more contented.
But the forces, the neurotic forces, will go on boiling within; any day they will disrupt the surface, and you
will fall down dead.
These methods are conciliatory, and very few people can be helped through them. And those who can be
helped through them can be helped without any technique. Those are exceptions - fortunate ones who are
not born neurotic. Many things are implied in that, but as a rule humanity is not so fortunate.
So my emphasis is first to dissolve your inner division, to make you one - a unity. Unless you are one,
nothing can be done. The first thing is how to dissolve your neurosis.
So my technique accepts your neurosis as it is and tries to release it. My technique basically starts with
catharsis. Whatever is hidden must be released. You must not go on repressing; rather, choose expression as
the path. Do not condemn yourself. Accept what you are because every condemnation creates division.
Just by condemning nothing is destroyed. If you say sex is bad, you condemn it, but you cannot destroy
it. Just by condemning it, it is not destroyed. Rather, it may become a more dangerous force, because when
repressed, it may struggle to be expressed. And if you go on struggling with it, not allowing it, it will
become perverted. Repression will make you more sexual, and the sex energy will struggle and will try to
come out in any way, in any form.
All the perversions, all over the world - homosexuality or sado-masochist perversions are basically
byproducts of so-called religions, particularly christianity: because the more they repress, the more the
energy has to find paths of its own. Natural sex is beautiful; perverted sex is just ugliness. Natural sex can
be made hallowed and holy, but perverted sex cannot be made holy because it is twice removed from the
original source.
Sex is there: do not condemn it. Accept it. Do not create a division in your being, between parts of your
being. Anger is there: accept it. Greed is there, or whatsoever: accept it. I do not mean be greedy. Rather on
the contrary, the moment you accept you go beyond, because acceptance creates a unity, and when you are
united within you have the energy to go beyond.
When you are divided within, your energy is fighting with itself; it cannot be used for any
transformation. So let there be an acceptance of what you are - not condemnation. Whatsoever you have
been doing up until now is just repressing. That all has to be released. If you become consciously neurotic,
one day you will come to a point where you are no more neurotic.
This may seem paradoxical, but those who repress their neurosis become more and more neurotic, while
those who express it consciously throw it out. So unless you become consciously insane, you can never
become sane. R.D.Laing is right. He is one of the most sensitive men in the West. He says, "Allow yourself
to be insane." You are insane, so something has to be done about it. What I say is to become conscious of it.
What do old traditions say? They say "Repress it; do not allow it to come out, otherwise you will become
insane. I say allow it to come out; that is the only way toward sanity. Release it! Inside, it will become
poisonous. Throw it out, remove it from your system totally. Expression is what is moral. And to do this
catharsis, you have to approach it in a very systematic, methodical way because it is becoming mad with a
method - consciously mad.
You have to do two things: remain conscious of what you are doing, and then do not suppress anything.
In our minds consciousness means suppression. That is the problem. The moment you become conscious of
certain things in yourself, you start suppressing them. This is the discipline and this has to be learned: to be
conscious and nonsuppressive; on the contrary, to be conscious and expressive.
You are feeling miserable: what will you do? Either you will try some escape so that you can forget, or
you will try something which brings you out of your misery, or something which calms you down.
Whatsoever you do will be a subtle repression, and the misery will be accumulated and it will remain in
your system. The more it remains there, the more poisonous it becomes; the longer, the more poisonous. It
is not only in your mind. It moves into your body, into your blood, into your bones, into your physiology. It
creates many diseases.
At least fifty percent of diseases are mental and have their origin in the mind. And this statistic I am
giving is a very conservative statistic - fifty percent. Those who work with mind and body, they know that
ninety percent of diseases are mind-created. So the more you repress your energies, the more diseased you
will become in mind and body - both. You have to go inside yourself with a deep transforming method.
My system of Dynamic Meditation starts with breathing, because breathing has deep roots in the being.
You may not have observed that breathing is very special in many ways. Your body has two types of
systems. One system is voluntary, another system is nonvoluntary. I can move my hand voluntarily, but I
cannot influence my blood circulation. That is nonvoluntary. Your body is made of these two types of
systems - the voluntary and the nonvoluntary. You can do something with it: you can take deep breaths; you
can take slow breaths. You can change the rhythm; you can even stop breathing for a few minutes or a few
seconds. But it is still in between. You cannot stop it forever. It is a link between the voluntary and
nonvoluntary systems of your body.
If you can change your breathing, you can change many things with it. If you can observe your
breathing minutely, you can detect in yourself many things. When you are angry you have a different
rhythm of breathing; when you are in love, a totally different rhythm comes to you. When you are relaxed
you breathe differently; when you are tense you breathe differently. You cannot breathe the way you do
when you are relaxed and be angry at the same time. That is impossible.
When you are sexually aroused, your breathing changes. If you do not allow the breathing to change,
your sexual arousal will drop automatically. That means that breathing is deeply related to your mental
state. If you change your breathing, you can change the state of your mind. Or, if you change the state of
your mind, breathing will change.
So I start with breathing, and I suggest chaotic breathing for ten minutes in the beginning of the
technique. And by chaotic breathing I mean just taking the breath in and throwing it out without any rhythm
- without any rhythm. Just taking it in and throwing it out, as much as you can.
This chaotic breathing is to create a chaos within your repressed system. Whatever you are, you are with
a certain type of breathing. A child breathes in a different way, and when the child becomes sexually aware,
or is made aware by parents or society, he starts to breathe again in a different way. If you are sexually
afraid, you cannot breathe deeply because every deep breath hits the sex center. So if you are sexually
afraid, you cannot take deep breaths. And we make the child sexually afraid. If a child is touching or
playing with his sex organs, we will stop him. When you stop him, his breath will become shallow. He
cannot breathe deeply; he has become afraid. In fear, you cannot take deep breaths; fear creates shallow
breathing.
This chaotic breathing is to destroy all your systems of the past. Whatsoever you have made out of
yourself, it is to destroy it. This creates a chaos within you, because unless a chaos is created you cannot
release your repressed emotions; and those emotions have now moved into the body.
Ten minutes of chaotic breathing is wonderful. But it must be chaotic. It is not a type of pranayama,
yogic breathing; it is simply creating chaos through breathing. And it creates chaos for many reasons.
Deep, fast breathing gives you more oxygen. The more oxygen in the body, the more alive you become,
the more animal-like. Animals are alive and man is half-dead, half-alive. You have to be made into an
animal again; only then can something higher develop in you. You are false, and if you are only half-alive
nothing can be done with you.
So this chaotic breathing will make you like an animal: alive, vibrating, vital - with more oxygen in your
blood, more energy in your cells. Your body cells become more alive and this oxygenation helps to create
body electricity, or you can call it bioenergy. When there is electricity in the body you can move deep
within, beyond yourself, because this electricity will work within you. As you are, you are just dead, or
half-dead. ... Because even to be completely dead is good. Something complete is always good, but this
half-deadness is bad.
The body has its own electrical sources. If you hammer them with more breathing and more oxygen,
they begin to flow. And if you become really alive then you are no more a body. When you are alive you
feel yourself as energy, not matter. You feel yourself to be a body because you are half dead. That is why
you feel so much weight. That half-deadness gives you weight and a feeling of being pulled down by
gravity. You feel you have to carry yourself somehow. You are just heavy. This heaviness is because of
your half-deadness. The more alive you become, then the more energy flows in your system, and the less
you will feel yourself physically. You will feel more like energy and less like matter.
And whenever it happens that you are more alive, in those moments you are not body oriented. If sex
has so much appeal, one of the reasons is that if you are really in the act, totally moving, totally alive, then
you are no longer a body - just energy. To feel this energy is very necessary if you are to move further.
Then my second step is a catharsis. I tell you to be consciously insane, and whatever comes to your
mind - whatever - allow it expression and cooperate with it. No resistance, just a flow of emotions....
If you want to scream, then scream; cooperate with it. A deep scream, a total scream in which your
whole being becomes involved, is very therapeutic, deeply therapeutic. Many things, many diseases, will be
released just by the scream. If the scream becomes total, then your whole being is in it. Allow yourself
expression through crying, dancing, weeping, jumping, "freaking out," as they say. This second step is also
for ten minutes, and within a few days you will come to feel what it is.
In the beginning it may be just forced, an effort, or it may even be just acting. We have become so false
that nothing real or authentic can be done by us. We have not laughed, we have not cried, we have not
screamed authentically; everything is just a facade, a mask. So when you start to do it, in the beginning it
may be forced. It may need effort, there may be just acting, but do not bother about it, go on. Soon you will
touch those sources where you have repressed many things. You will touch those sources, and once they are
broken you will feel unburdened; a new life will come to you, a new birth will take place. This unburdening
is basic, and without it there can be no meditation for man as he is. I am not talking about the exceptions;
they are irrelevant.
With this second step, when things are thrown out you become vacant. And this is what is meant by
emptiness - to be empty of all repressions. Then in this emptiness something can be done.
Then in the third step I use the sound HOO. Many sounds have been used in the past; each sound has
something specific to do. For example, Hindus have been using the sound AUM. It may be very familiar to
you, but I won't suggest aum. It never goes deeper than the heart. It just touches the heart and moves back; it
cannot go deeper.
Sufis have used hoo, and if you say hoo loudly, it goes deep to the sex center. So this sound is used just
as a hammering within. When you have become vacant and empty, only then can this sound move within
you. The movement of the sound is possible only when you are empty. If you are filled with repressions
nothing will happen. And sometimes it is even dangerous to use any mantra or sound when you are filled
with repressions, because each repression will change the sound inside, and the ultimate result may be
something of which you never dreamed, never expected, never wished for, because each layer of repression
will change the path of the sound. You need a vacant mind; only then can a mantra be used.
So I never suggest a mantra to anyone as he is. There were certain mantras in old India that were used
only by sannyasins, never by householders. They were never allowed to be used by householders because
householders have a different system within. That sound hoo could disturb them. So only a sannyasin was
allowed to use certain sounds.
In the old days, particularly in Tibet, whenever a mantra was given to a sannyasin he had to touch a
flower, a live flower on a branch. And if the flower became dead, dulled by his touch, only then was the
mantra given to him because that mantra was going to create a subtle death within him. It should not be
used by a householder because then death will start hovering around him. It should not be done without first
doing the first two steps. It should never be done without them. If you are neurotic and the neurosis is not
released, then if you do "hoo," you will become more neurotic. So only in the third step, for ten minutes, is
this "hoo" to be used - as loudly as possible. Bring your total energy to it. This is a hammering. When you
are empty, this hoo goes deep down and hits the sex center.
The sex center can be hit in two ways. The first is naturally. Whenever you are attracted to a member of
the opposite sex, the sex center is hit from without. And really that hit is also a subtle vibration. A man is
attracted to a woman or a woman is attracted to a man. Why are they attracted? What is there in a man and
what is there in a woman? A positive or negative electricity hits them, a subtle vibration: it is a sound,
really. You may have observed in birds that they use sound for sex appeal. All their singing is sexual; they
are repeatedly hitting each other with particular sounds. These sounds hit the sex centers of birds of the
opposite sex.
Subtle vibrations of electricity are hitting you from without. When your sex center is hit from without,
your energy begins to flow out That causes reproduction, birth: someone else will be born out of you.
This "hoo" is hitting the same center of energy from within; and when the sex center is hit from within,
the energy starts to flow within. This inner flow of energy changes you completely. You become
transformed; you give birth to yourself.
You are transformed only when your energy moves in a totally opposite direction. Right now it is
flowing out, but then it begins to flow within; now it is flowing down, but then it flows upward. This
upward flow of energy is what is known as KUNDALINI. You will feel it in your spine - actually flowing -
and the higher it moves, the higher you will move with it. And when this energy reaches to your head
center, to the last, the seventh center, you are the highest man possible - what Gurdjieff calls "man number
seven."
You are "man number one" when your energy is just at the sex center. When some energy comes to your
heart center, you are "man number two," the man of emotion. When some energy moves to the intellect, you
are "man number three," a man of the intellect. These are ordinary men - all neurotic in their own ways.
Someone is emotionally neurotic, someone is bodily neurotic, someone is intellectually neurotic. These
three men are just ordinary men.
"Man number four" is one who is trying to move his energy within: the man who is meditating, the man
who is making efforts to dissolve his neurosis, divisions and schizophrenia. This is "man number four." And
as this energy moves upwards and inwards, a higher man is created in you. That higher man will be less
neurotic, less schizophrenic, more sane.
Then a moment comes when that energy is released from your last center into the cosmos. You become
a superman, or then you are no longer man. And when that moment comes, when you are no longer man,
only then are you no longer mad.
Man is bound to be mad somehow or other because he is not a being; he is, rather, a facade. Man is not
an end; rather, he is a process - something midway. He is no longer animal, and he is still not that which he
was meant to be. He is just a midway thing, a phase. That creates neurosis.
You are no longer an animal. With all the animality within you, you are no more an animal. The animal
is there, but you are no more animal. The animal goes on pulling you down. There is nothing bad in it; the
animal cannot do anything else. It goes on pulling you down to the sex center, and you move around it
continously. But that is your first center, not your ultimate possibility. Your ultimate possibility is the
superman - going beyond humanity, transcending man. That goes on pulling you upwards.
These two pulls create schizophrenia. So one moment you are pulled to the higher and you are like a
saint, and the next moment you are behaving like an animal; you are pulled down. Now the mind becomes
confused. You cannot be an animal wholeheartedly because of the higher possibility. The seed is there and
it goes on hitting you and challenging you. So you cannot be at ease with the animal, but you cannot remove
the animal. It is there, it is your heritage. So you divide yourself in two. You place the animal part of you in
the unconscious, and consciously you identify yourself with your higher possibility, which you are not.
This higher possibility is the ideal, the end. Consciously you identify with the end, unconsciously you
remain with the beginning. These two points create conflict. So unless you go beyond man, you cannot go
beyond madness. Man is madness.
In the third step I use hoo as a vehicle to bring your energy upward. These first three steps are cathartic.
Really, they are not meditation but just the preparation for it. They are a getting ready to take the jump, not
the jump itself.
The fourth step is the jump. In the fourth step I tell you just to be a witness - a conscious alertness; not
doing anything, but just remaining a witness, just remaining with yourself; not doing anything - no
movement, no desire, no becoming, but just remaining then and there, silently witnessing whatsoever is
happening....
That remaining in the center, in yourself, is possible because of the first three steps. Unless these three
are done you cannot remain with yourself. You can go on talking about it, thinking about it, dreaming about
it, but it will not happen because you are not ready.
These first three steps will make you ready to remain with the moment, they will make you aware. That
is meditation, and in that meditation something happens that is beyond words. And once it happens you will
never be the same again; it is impossible. It is a growth. It is not simply an experience, it is a growth.
And that is the difference between false techniques and real techniques. With false techniques you can
have an experience, remember, then you will fall back again. It was just a glimpse; it was not a growth. So
with LSD this can happen: you will have a glimpse. With other techniques this can happen: you can have a
glimpse, you can have an experience, but again you will fall down because you have not grown. The
experience has happened to you; you have not happened to the experience. You have not grown. When you
grow, you cannot fall down.
If a child dreams that he has become a young man, he can have a glimpse of being a young man, but it is
a dream. The dream will be broken and he will be a child again because it was not a growth. But if you have
grown and become a young man, you cannot fall down and become a child; it is a real growth. So this is the
criterion to judge whether a method, a technique, has been real or false.
There are false techniques that are easier to do; they never lead you anywhere. And if you are just after
experiences you will fall prey to any false technique. A real technique is not concerned with experiences as
such; a real technique is concerned with real growth. Experiences happen; that is irrelevant. My concern is
with growth, not with experiences. Experiences will be there as just part and parcel of the growth, but I am
not concerned....
You must grow to become one, to become whole, to become sane. And this sanity cannot be forced
upon you. It is being forced by society so you remain insane within and the sanity is just a facade.
I am not going to force sanity upon you. Rather, I am going to bring out your insanity. When it is pulled
out completely, thrown into the wind, sanity will happen to you. You will grow.
And you ask why this coincidence, because in the West also many techniques are being developed just
similar to what I am saying. But they are just similar, not the same. There are many differences. But it has
become now very much an emergency situation. The whole world is in the grip of a long postponed
insanity. We have been postponing and postponing, and now the last point, the evaporation point, has come.
There are now only two possibilities: one is that humanity may commit a collective suicide, because this
insanity can no more be accumulated. Religions have helped, moralists have helped, teachers have helped,
the so-called great men have helped, to make man more and more insane. And now the last point has come
where we may commit a collective suicide through atom bombs or hydrogen bombs or something else.
Man as such cannot be tolerated on the earth now. He has become intolerable. And with him, he is
murdering the whole earth. Not only is he suicidal, he has become murderous; he is killing everything. Man
is killing everything on the earth. There is nothing alive that he likes now; only dead things appeal to him.
And the deader the better, because then you can possess them, manipulate them.
So he is killing nature and everything on earth. He cannot be tolerated, and his own inner insanity is
bringing him to the evaporating point. Because of this, the time is coming nearer and nearer. And all over
the world, those who think and those who feel and those who know, they are searching for methods, they
are devising methods, to help humanity to transcend madness. That is the only way.
Either man will commit suicide or man will take a jump into higher realms of being. If this
transformation is not going to come, then nothing can be done: man will commit suicide. That is why all
over the world spiritual energies are gathering, spiritual forces are joining together, many esoteric groups
are working. And sometimes it may not be so obvious but deep down in the very center of the human mind.
Languages differ, ways differ, approaches differ, but everywhere there is a groping for something which can
become an alchemy to change humanity.
And you ask about Wilhelm Reich's use of sexual energy to release body blocks that coincide with
neurosis: I am wholly in agreement with Wilhelm Reich's approach. Really, sex is the problem; all other
problems are byproducts. And unless man comes to a deep understanding of sex energy it is impossible to
help him.
It is very difficult because a basic mechanism has been used to make man a slave. You cannot make a
man a slave unless you make him feel guilty. Guilt is the trick to enslave anyone. First make him guilty.
And you can make anyone guilty only with something that is so natural that he cannot go beyond it easily.
And sex is the most natural thing because it is the source of life.
You are born of sex. Your every body cell is a sex cell, all your energy is sex energy. So if religions
teach that sex is bad, sex is sin, they have condemned you completely. And not only have they condemned
you, now you will condemn yourself. Now you cannot go beyond it and you cannot leave it, and now it is a
sin. You are divided; you start fighting with yourself. And the more this guilt can be created in you - over
the concept that sex is something unholy - the more neurotic you will become.
But when you are neurotic, you can be possessed. Priests can possess you, kings can possess you. But if
you are not neurotic, you will not go to priests. Then there is no need. You go because you are afraid of a
certain energy which is there, and the priests say they know the way how to help you. So first they create
the guilt; then they say that now they are going to help you. Then they can exploit you. A society which is
sexually free and at ease with sex will not go to temples, to mosques, to churches - no! It is impossible! If
you are at ease with your sex, then this so-called religion cannot continue business. Then you are not guilty,
so what is the need to go anywhere?
And sex can give you such deep contentment! That too can become a problem. If you are contented,
then you are not hankering after any heaven or something beyond life. Then you are here and now - so
contented. Then you need not go ask someone about life after death. Then life is here.
So sex was used as an exploitative thing. And kings can use you only if you suppress your sex, because
suppressed sex becomes violence. You cannot create soldiers, you cannot create militaries, you cannot
create wars if you do not suppress sex. A suppressed man is always in the mood to fight. That is the only
way to release his sex.
So kings, emperors, they cannot allow soldiers to have a sex life. And if American soldiers prove
everywhere to be failures, the reason is only this: they cannot succeed anywhere with sexstarved people.
Americans can never succeed, because sexstarved soldiers are mad; you cannot fight with them. So
whenever a society becomes affluent, easygoing, it is defeated easily. Anyone can defeat it. A higher
civilization is always defeated by a lower civilization.
India was defeated continuously because of her higher civilization. People were more at ease, not in the
mood to fight, they were enjoying life. Those who are not enjoying life, they are ready to fight. If life is
beautiful, you can bless everyone. If your life is in difficulty, in turmoil, you can kill, you can become
destructive. So hippies are right when they say, "Make love, not war." They are very consistent. If you make
love, wars will become impossible. And if you cannot love, then the energy will move another way. It has to
move. Then it will move toward wars.
So Wilhem Reich was right, absolutely right, that sex is the problem and all other problems are just
byproducts of it, branches of it. And if you go on tackling branches, nothing can happen. Nothing can
happen unless you tackle the roots. This is my understanding also - not only mine, but the whole
understanding of tantra.
But tantra was always supressed. It was never allowed to exist anywhere visibly. Tantra had to go
underground, because whenever a tantra teacher was there and he would say these things, he was killed -
because the whole society is based on something he was destroying.
So Wilhelm Reich was attacked in every way. It was forcibly declared that he was mad. They put him
into prison, and he died an unknown man. And this century has not given birth to a parallel genius. He was a
modern tantrika, and there was an esoteric group that was helping him. But it was difficult. It is very
difficult to bring truths to humanity, because humanity is based on lies.
Humanity is neurotic. It is suffering because of its lies. But everyone thinks these are truths. The
moment you say you are suffering because of a particular lie, society will kill you because then you are
taking away the whole foundation. Society wants that one should not suffer and also that its lies should not
be challenged. But that is not possible, so you cannot be helped.
This is my experience: every day I come across people, and they come and they say they are searching
for God. The more I analyze them, the more I find that sex is the problem. But if I say that sex is the
problem, it is insulting to them, ego-deflating. And sex is the problem. Unless it is solved, no search for God
is possible.
This is my attitude: unless you are at ease with the earth you cannot enter heaven. Be at ease with the
earth, be at ease with your body, be at ease with your energies. Only then can you become masters. Only
then can you "persuade" your energies. And they cannot be fought, they can only be persuaded. You cannot
force them. A master is one who can persuade his earthly energies to move upwards.
So I take sex as the basic problem. And if your sex problem is solved, you are a different man or a
different woman, because then all the perversions simply are no more. You have resolved the base. And
when sex is solved and it is not a problem for you, not a fight, when you have deeply accepted it and said a
deep yes to it, then you can transform it - because that is the energy which is alive in you. When you are
dead, that energy will go on and on, more and more. You are just a wave in a sex ocean: the ocean
continues, and the waves go on, die and disappear. The ocean continues. Sex is the BRAHMAN. If you go
deep into sex, then it is the very life. If you forget it, then you remain on the surface. Then it is ugly. If you
do not fight with it or sink into it, but drop into it, dissolve into it, melt into it, when you allow sex to
become life, then suddenly it is transformed into love. That is how the mechanism automatically works. If
you fight it, sex becomes hate. So those who are filled with hatred are those who are fighting with their sex.
If you do not fight it, if you accept it and melt into it, it becomes love. So love and hate are two faces of
sex. If it is perverted, it becomes hate. If accepted deeply, it will become love. And you can create love out
of your sex energies. If those energies transform into love, then you are at ease in the world, at home with
the earth. That at-homeness is basic.
And this is the beauty: if you accept sex, you will not reject anything else. That is why there is so much
emphasis on it. If you reject sex, you will have to reject many things. Sex is the root rejection. If you reject
sex, you will reject many things. Food will be rejected, then clothes will be rejected, then everything will be
rejected. It is a long sequence, and in that sequence you will have to reject and reject, because the whole life
is sexual. If you reject sex you will go on and on rejecting, and ultimately you will reject life. Then suicide
is the only thing worth doing because even to take a breath is sexual. It goes to your sex cells and gives
them life. To be alive is to be sexual. If you are against sex, then you will be against everything. And a
person who is against everything is bound to be neurotic, mad, and you cannot help him.
I am for everything, and everything can be hallowed - can be made sacred. You must know the
technique, you must know the tantra, you must know the way how to make everything sacred. Every poison
can become an elixir, it depends on you. And my whole approach is to help you, to give you a method
through which you can change your life energies. It is a deeply scientific approach.
You ask: "I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO ASK HOW DO THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW YOU, THE
SANNYASINS, FUNCTION IN THIS NEUROTIC WORLD NOW THAT THEY ARE PRACTICING
SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BRING THEM OUT OF THEIR INNER NEUROSIS?"
If you are sane, then there is no problem. You can move in this neurotic world very easily - if you are
sane. If you are insane, then it is a problem.
Ordinarily, it may look very difficult to be non-neurotic in a neurotic world. It is difficult in a way. If
you get too serious, it is very difficult. If you start fighting with insane men and you start fighting with
everything they have created, it will be difficult. But you can fight only if you are still insane. Otherwise
you will laugh; there is no need to fight. There is no need to fight! You will laugh!
Then you will act. A wise man is an actor; he is not serious because there is no need to be serious. You
know that all around you are madmen, so there is no need to be serious with them. You can act, and only if
you act can you help them.
There is a proposal of R.D.Laing's that doctors in asylums for the mad should not be there as doctors but
as madmen. That means they should act. Then they will be more helpful because there will be more affinity;
as doctors, they are against the mad. They should remain in the asylum as madmen. No one should know
that they are doctors; then they can help more. This proposal is absolutely worth trying. I am working that
way already!
You must act, and a man must be cunning. When I say "cunning," I mean this: he must act.
Gurdjieff used to say a wise man must be sly. He must act; otherwise he cannot help. He must not be too
serious like Krishnamurti. That seriousness gives unnecessary sadness to you. And then anger comes,
because a serious person is angry against everyone. There is no need. If you already know that someone is
insane, there is no need. So help them. You can, but be a madman among them. Do not fight them. This is
the way of the wise man.
There are many teachers that propose that they are teachers, and perhaps many are false teachers. How
can a real seeker distinguish a real teacher from one who is involved with his own ego power?
It is difficult, very difficult; in a way impossible. But there is no need either. You need not try to
distinguish, you need not try! Even a false teacher will help you to know falsity. Do not worry too much
about distinguishing. If you happen to be with a false teacher, be with him as wholeheartedly as possible.
You will know, and when you know you will have grown, and then no other false teacher will be able to
catch you.
And life is known only through experience. I cannot give you any criteria to judge whether someone is a
false teacher or someone is a true one because all the criteria can be used by those false teachers also. And
they have used all. And sometimes it happens - rather, it has happened more often than not - that you will
find it difficult to judge a real teacher, because a real teacher will not bother about your criteria. But a false
teacher will always move according to the criteria.
If the society says that a real teacher will be an ascetic one, then anyone can manage to be ascetic, it is
not difficult. So anything can be managed. And a seeker is not even aware of himself, so how can he judge?
But there is no need. If this is made a basic need - first to judge whether a teacher is real or not - then you
will never proceed because this first thing cannot be fulfilled. You will remain where you are. So I say
move. If you happen to be with a false teacher, good: move with him; live with him. Whatsoever he teaches,
try it. You will come to know through your own experience that the man was false. But do not go against
him. There is no need. He has trained you for a particular thing. You have known something which is good
to know - what falsity is. Now you will be more aware. So go on moving, go on moving!
Everything in life is a learning. Make everything a learning and do not try to be wise before experience;
you cannot be. Experience will show you more. And the real search is not for a real teacher, the real search
is for a "real seeker." So you will become a real seeker through your search. And false or real, all teachers
will help you.
Everyone helps if you are ready to take the help. So do not think of the other, whether the teacher is real
or not. Your search must be real and authentic; that is all. If yours is a real, authentic search, no false teacher
can deceive you. And if otherwise, there is no way. So remain authentic with your search. Those teachers
will fall down by themselves.
You say: "AMONG YOUR FOLLOWERS THERE ARE MANY WESTERNERS. IN RELATION TO
WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT SEX, I HAVE THE IMPRESSION THAT THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF
SEXUAL REPRESSION HERE IN INDIA. ISN'T IT THAT YOU ATTRACT SO MANY WESTERNERS
BECAUSE OF YOUR VIEWS ON RELEASING SUPPRESSIONS? SO YOU FIND THAT THE INDIAN
MENTALITY CANNOT RESPOND TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING AS EASILY AS THE
WESTERNERS CAN?"
Humanity, deep down, is not so divided. East and West are just surface distinctions. And in a way,
ostensibly it will appear that whatsoever I am saying will be more appealing to the Western mind than to the
Eastern mind. But deeply, it is not so.
The Eastern mind is more repressed, obviously. It has moved along in a very deep repression. But the
Western mind today has moved to the opposite pole. I am standing somewhere in between and the distance
is the same.
For the Easterner to travel to me, the distance is the same as it is for the Westerner to travel to me,
because I am neither Eastern nor Western: I am beyond both. So as I see it, if a Western seeker comes to
me, in the beginning, in the beginning only, he feels at ease with me. Whatsoever I say appeals to him,
because now the whole trend in the West, the modern trend, is anti-repressive.
But this is the way of the mind - that it always moves to the opposite pole, the opposite extreme. The
modern trend is against tradition, but you can make a tradition out of being against tradition, and they have
made it so. It is a nonconformist attitude, but nonconformism can become a conformist attitude.
For example, a hippie is a nonconformist to the establishment, but now hippies have their own
establishment, and if you do not have their style of hair, you cannot be accepted. So what to do?
Anti-tradition has become a tradition. Rebelliousness can become an orthodoxy and it has become so. They
have moved to the opposite pole.
So when they come to me in the beginning, my thoughts appeal to them. But I am not anti-traditionalist.
I am neither anti nor for. So when they start moving with me, then troubles arise. With the Western seeker,
in the beginning he is very easily attracted to me. But the more I work with him and on him, the more he
struggles. With the Easterner it is very difficult in the beginning for him to be attracted to me, but once he is
attracted then there is no trouble. Do you understand me? It is difficult for the Eastern mind to be attracted
to me, because whatsoever I say just shocks him. But once he can tolerate the shock, then things will happen
more easily. There are reasons.
The Eastern mind lives with tradition, totally accepting it. He suffers many things because of it, but the
deep acceptance is there. Whenever I say something, he is shocked and he will move away from me. But if
he comes to me, that deep acceptance of tradition is shifted toward me. He will accept me, and then the
work becomes very easy. When the Westerner comes to me, he is attracted by my thoughts. But when I
work with him, he cannot even accept me, he cannot follow any discipline. He cannot do anything
consistently, systematically. So that creates problems. It is easy to attract Westerners with my views, but
difficult to work with them. It is difficult to attract Easterners, but easy to work with them once they are
attracted. So on the whole, it is the same. On the whole there is not much difference.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #4
Chapter title: Dynamic Meditation or, Silent Meditation
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF04
Audio: No
Video: No
QUESTION: DYNAMIC MEDITATION IS VERY ACTIVE, VERY STRENUOUS.CAN ONE NOT GO INTO
MEDITATION JUST BY SITTING SILENTLY?
You can go into meditation just by sitting, but then be just sitting; do not do anything else. If you can be
just sitting, it becomes meditation. Be completely in the sitting; nonmovement should be your only
movement. In fact, the word zen comes from the word zazen, which means, just sitting, doing nothing. If
you can just sit, doing nothing with your body and nothing with your mind, it becomes meditation; but it is
difficult.
You can sit very easily when you are doing something else but the moment you are just sitting and
doing nothing, it becomes a problem. Every fiber of the body begins to move inside; every vein, every
muscle, begins to move. You will begin to feel a subtle trembling; you will be aware of many points in the
body of which you have never been aware before. And the more you try to just sit, the more movement you
will feel inside you. So sitting can be used only if you have done other things first.
You can just walk, that is easier. You can just dance, that is even easier. And after you have been doing
other things that are easier, then you can sit. Sitting in a buddha posture is the last thing to do really; it
should never be done in the beginning. Only after you have begun to feel identified totally with movement
can you begin to feel totally identified with nonmovement.
So I never tell people to begin with just sitting. Begin from where beginning is easy, otherwise you will
begin to feel many things unnecessarily -- things that are not there.
If you begin with sitting, you will feel much disturbance inside. The more you try to just sit, the more
disturbance will be felt; you will become aware only of your insane mind and nothing else. It will create
depression, you will feel frustrated. You will not feel blissful; rather, you will begin to feel that you are
insane. And sometimes you may really go insane.
If you make a sincere effort to "just sit," you may really go insane. Only because people do not really try
sincerely does insanity not happen more often. With a sitting posture you begin to know so much madness
inside you that if you are sincere and continue it, you may really go insane. It has happened before, so many
times; so I never suggest anything that can create frustration, depression, sadness -- anything that will allow
you to be too aware of your insanity. You may not be ready to be aware of all the insanity that is inside you;
you must be allowed to get to know certain things gradually. Knowledge is not always good; it must unfold
itself slowly as your capacity to absorb it grows.
I begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture; I allow your insanity. If you dance madly, the
opposite happens within you. With a mad dance, you begin to be aware of a silent point within you; with
sitting silently, you begin to be aware of madness. The opposite is always the point of awareness. With your
dancing madly, chaotically, with crying, with chaotic breathing, I allow your madness. Then you begin to be
aware of a subtle point, a deep point inside you which is silent and still, in contrast to the madness on the
periphery. You will feel very blissful; at your center there is an inner silence. But if you are just sitting, then
the inner one is the mad one; you are silent on the outside, but inside you are mad.
If you begin with something active -- something positive, alive, moving -- it will be better; then you will
begin to feel an inner stillness growing. The more it grows, the more it will be possible for you to use a
sitting posture or a lying posture -- the more silent meditation will be possible. But by then things will be
different, totally different.
A meditation technique that begins with movement, action, helps you in other ways, also. It becomes a
catharsis. When you are just sitting, you are frustrated; your mind wants to move and you are just sitting.
Every muscle turns, every nerve turns. You are trying to force something upon yourself that is not natural
for you; then you have divided yourself into the one who is forcing and the one who is being forced. And
really, the part that is being forced and suppressed is the more authentic part; it is a more major part of your
mind than the part that is suppressing, and the major part is bound to win.
That which you are suppressing is really to be thrown, not suppressed. It has become an accumulation
within you because you have been constantly suppressing it. The whole upbringing, the civilization, the
education, is suppressive. You have been suppressing much that could have been thrown very easily with a
different education, with a more conscious education, with a more aware parenthood. With a better
awareness of the inner mechanism of the mind, the culture could have allowed you to throw many things.
For example, when a child is angry we tell him, "Do not be angry." He begins to suppress anger. By and
by, what was a momentary happening becomes permanent. Now he will not act angry, but he will remain
angry. We have accumulated so much anger from what were just momentary things; no one can be angry
continuously unless anger has been suppressed. Anger is a momentary thing that comes and goes: if it is
expressed, then you are no longer angry. So with me, I would allow the child to be angry more
authentically. Be angry, but be deep in it; do not suppress it.
Of course, there will be problems. If we say, "Be angry," then you are going to be angry at someone. But
a child can be molded; he can be given a pillow and told, "Be angry with the pillow. Be violent with the
pillow." From the very beginning, a child can be brought up in a way in which the anger is just deviated.
Some object can be given to him: he can go on throwing the object until his anger goes. Within minutes,
within seconds, he will have dissipated his anger and there will be no accumulation of it.
You have accumulated anger, sex, violence, greed, everything! Now this accumulation is a madness
within you. It is there, inside you. If you begin with any suppressive meditation -- for example, with just
sitting -- you are suppressing all of this, you are not allowing it to be released. So I begin with a catharsis.
First, let the suppressions be thrown into the air; and when you can throw your anger into the air, you have
become mature.
If I cannot be loving alone, if I can be loving only with someone I love, then, really, I am not mature yet.
Then I am depending on someone even to be loving; someone must be there, then I can be loving. Then that
loving can only be a very superficial thing; it is not my nature. If I am alone in the room I am not loving at
all, so the loving quality has not gone deep; it has not become a part of my being.
You become more and more mature when you are less and less dependent. If you can be angry alone,
you are more mature. You do not need any object to be angry. So I make a catharsis in the beginning a must.
You must throw everything into the sky, into the open space, without being conscious of any object.
Be angry without the person with whom you would like to be angry. Weep without finding any cause;
laugh, just laugh, without anything to laugh at. Then you can just throw the whole accumulated thing -- you
can just throw it. And once you know the way, you are unburdened of the whole past.
Within moments you can be unburdened of the whole life -- of lives even. If you are ready to throw
everything, if you can allow your madness to come out, within moments there is a deep cleansing. Now you
are cleansed: fresh, innocent -- you are a child again. Now, in your innocence, sitting meditation can be
done -- just sitting, or just lying or anything -- because now there is no mad one inside to disturb the sitting.
Cleansing must be the first thing -- a catharsis -- otherwise, with breathing exercises, with just sitting,
with practicing asanas, yogic postures, you are just suppressing something. And a very strange thing
happens: when you have allowed everything to be thrown out, sitting will just happen, asanas will just
happen -- it will be spontaneous.
You may not have known anything about yoga asanas but you begin to do them. Now these postures are
authentic, real. They bring much transformation inside your body because now the body itself is doing them,
you are not forcing them. For example, when someone has thrown many things out, he may begin to try to
stand on his head. He may have never learned to do shirshasan, the headstand, but now his whole body is
trying to do it. This is a very inner thing now; it comes from his inner body wisdom, not from his mind's
intellectual, cerebral information. If his body insists, "Go and stand on your head!" and he allows it, he will
feel very refreshed, very changed by it.
You may do any posture, but I allow these postures only when they come by themselves. Someone can
sit down and be silent in siddhasan or in any other posture, but this siddhasan is something quite different;
the quality differs. He is trying to be silent in sitting -- but this is a happening, there is no suppression, there
is no effort; it is just how your body feels. Your total being feels to sit. In this sitting there is no divided
mind, no suppression. This sitting becomes a flowering.
You must have seen statues of Buddha sitting on a flower, a lotus flower. The lotus is just symbolic; it is
symbolic of what is happening inside Buddha. When "just sitting" happens from the inside, you feel just like
the opening of a flower. Nothing is being suppressed from the outside; rather, there is a growth, an opening
from the inside; something inside opens and flowers. You can imitate Buddha's posture, but you cannot
imitate the flower. You can sit completely buddhalike -- even more buddhalike than Buddha -- but the
inside flowering will not be there. It cannot be imitated.
You can use tricks. You can use breathing rhythms that can force you to be still, to suppress your mind.
Breath can be used very suppressively because with every rhythm of breath a particular mood arises in your
mind. Not that other moods disappear; they just go into hiding.
You can force anything on yourself. If you want to be angry, just breathe the rhythm that happens in
anger. Actors do it, when they want to express anger they change their breathing rhythm; the breathing
rhythm must become the same as when there is anger. By making the rhythm fast they begin to feel anger,
the anger part of the mind comes up.
So breathing rhythm can be used to suppress the mind, to suppress anything in the mind. But it is not
good, it is not a flowering. The other way is better; when your mind changes and then, as a consequence,
your breath changes; the change comes first from the mind.
So I use breathing rhythm as a sign. A person who remains at ease with himself constantly remains in
the same breathing rhythm; it never changes because of the mind. It will change because of the body -- if
you are running it will change -- but it never changes because of the mind.
So tantra has used many, many breathing rhythms as secret keys. They even allow sexual intercourse as
a meditation, but they allow it only when your breathing rhythm remains constant in intercourse, otherwise
not. If the mind is involved, then the breathing rhythm cannot remain the same, and if the breathing rhythm
remains the same, the mind is not involved at all. If the mind is not involved even in such a deep biological
thing as sexual intercourse, then the mind will not be involved in anything else.
But you can force. You can sit and force a particular rhythm on your body, you can create a fallacious
buddhalike posture, but you will just be dead. You will become dull, stupid. It has happened to so many
monks, so many sadhus; they just become stupid. Their eyes have no light of intelligence; their faces are
just idiotic, with no inner light, no inner flame. Because they are so afraid of any inner movement, they have
suppressed everything -- including intelligence. Intelligence is a movement, one of the most subtle
movements, so if all inner movement is suppressed, intelligence will be affected.
Awareness is not a static thing. Awareness, too, is movement -- a dynamic flow. So if you start from the
outside, if you force yourself to sit like a statue, you are killing much. First be concerned with catharsis,
with cleaning out your mind, throwing everything out, so that you become empty and vacant -- just a
passage for something from the beyond to enter. Then sitting becomes helpful, silence becomes helpful, but
not before.
To me, silence in itself is not something worthwhile. You can create a silence that is a dead silence.
Silence must be alive, dynamic. If you "create" silence, you will become more stupid, more dull, more dead;
but this is easier in a way, and so many people are doing it now. The whole culture is so suppressive that it
is easier to suppress yourself still more. Then you do not have to take any risks, then you do not have to take
a jump.
People come to me and say, "Tell us a meditation technique that we can practice silently." Why this
fear? Everyone has a madhouse inside and still they say, "Tell us a technique that we can do silently." With
a silent technique you can only become more and more mad -- silently -- and nothing else.
The doors of your madhouse must be opened! Don't be afraid of what others will say. A person who is
concerned about what others think can never go inward. He will be too busy worrying about what others are
saying, what they are thinking.
If you just sit silently, closing your eyes, everything will be okay; your wife or your husband will say
that you have become a very good person. Everyone wants you to be dead; even mothers want their
children to be dead -- obedient, silent. The whole society wants you to be dead. So-called good men are
really dead men.
So don't be concerned with what others think, don't be concerned about the image that others may have
of you. Begin with catharsis and then something good can flower within you. It will have a different quality,
a different beauty, altogether different; it will be authentic.
When silence comes to you, when it descends on you, it is not a false thing. You have not been
cultivating it; it comes to you; it happens to you. You begin to feel it growing inside you just like a mother
begins to feel a child growing. A deep silence is growing inside you; you become pregnant with it. Only
then is there transformation; otherwise it is just self-deception. And one can deceive oneself for lives and
lives -- the capacity to do so is infinite.
QUESTION: BUT DOESN'T MEDITATION MEAN AKARMA, NO ACTIVITY?
The fourth stage of Dynamic Meditation is just akarma, no activity, but the first three stages are active.
The first, second, and third stages are of intense activity. In the first stage, your vital body, your breathing,
is in intense movement, in extreme activity. By being in extreme activity in your vital body, in your
prana-sharira, in your breathing, the second step becomes possible: you become intensely active in your
physical body. And in the third stage, after being totally active physiologically, it becomes possible to be
active in the mental body.
So in three bodies -- the physical, vital, and mental -- you create a climax of activity, a climax of
tension. You become more and more tense. Your whole existence becomes a whirlwind, a whirlpool. The
more intense it becomes, the greater the possibility of being relaxed in the fourth stage.
The fourth stage is total relaxation. It is not a practiced relaxation because, really, no one can practice
relaxation. Relaxation can come only as a byproduct, as a shadow of intense activity. To practice relaxation
is a contradiction in terms; every practice is a practice of tension. Relaxation means nondoing -- and you
cannot practice nondoing, you can only come to it, you can only arrive at it. Only by intense activity is a
situation created within you that takes you into a "letting go."
So the fourth stage is akarma. You are not doing anything: now you are. You just exist in it; there is
nothing that you are doing. If something is going on it has just happened. If there is something going on it is
through nature, it is not done by you. As far as you are concerned, activity has ceased completely; there is
no activity.
In this no-action state, in this akarmic state, the cosmic and the individual come nearer. They become
intimate, they lose their identities, they overlap each other. Something penetrates you from the cosmic and
something of you penetrates into the cosmic; the boundaries become flexible and liquid. Sometimes there is
no boundary and you feel an absence of consciousness -- there are no limits, no end and no beginning. And
sometimes the boundaries begin to crystallize around you.
This situation goes on flickering back and forth. Sometimes there are boundaries and sometimes there
are not. But the more relaxation is there, the more the boundaries will be lost. Then a moment comes that
can never be predicted; a moment comes that is a moment of happening, uncaused and unconditioned.
Finally a moment comes when you have lost the boundaries and you never regain them again. Then there
begins to exist a human being without boundaries, a mind without frontiers, a consciousness without any
limitations. That is the cosmic, that is the divine, that is wholeness.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #5
Chapter title: Moving Deeply into the Known
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF05
Audio: No
Video: No
I do not believe in fixed methods. I use methods just to push you into a very chaotic consciousness,
because the first thing to be done with you, as you are, is to disturb your whole pattern. You have become
solid, rigid; you must become more and more liquid and flowing. And unless you become flowing, riverlike,
you can never know the divine, because it is not a thing, it is an event.
You cannot seek the divine, it cannot be sought after, because you can seek only that which you know
already. Seeking means desiring and you cannot seek something that is unknown. How can you seek
something that you have not known at all? The very urge to seek comes only after you have tasted
something, known something -- even a glimpse. So the divine cannot be sought. But when I say the divine
cannot be sought, I do not mean that it cannot be found. It cannot be sought, but it can be found.
The more you seek it, the less will be the possibility to find it. Seek, and you will not find at all, because
the very seeking, the very seeking, becomes the barrier. So do not seek something that is not known to you;
rather, go deep into that which is known to you. Do not long for the unknown; go deep into the known. And
if you go deep into the known, you will stumble upon the doors to the unknown, because the known is really
the door to the unknown. So go deep.
For example, you cannot seek the divine, but if you have loved, then you have known love; so go deep
into love. And as you go deep into love, somewhere, the lover and the beloved are not there and the divine
appears.
So rather than seek the divine, it is better to go into that which is actual to you, that which is known to
you, near to you. Do not go far; begin from the near. We are so anxious to go far that we never take the first
step, which can be taken from the near. We ask for the last step first, but you cannot take the last step in the
beginning. The first must be taken first; the first is here and now, but we are concerned with there and then.
Seeking means seeking in time. Seeking is a postponement, a deep postponement, because seeking is
always in the future; it can never be in the present. How can you seek here and now? There is no space. You
can be here and now, but you cannot seek. So the very mind that seeks creates time, because time is needed;
only then can you seek.
That is why those who are seeking moksha, liberation, absolute liberation, have had to create the
concept of transmigration. More time is needed. One life is not enough, many lives are needed. Only then,
within this expanse of time, this space that time creates, can you move. If you have to find the absolute, one
moment is not enough; and of course, one life is also not enough.
Time is really a byproduct of desiring. The more you desire, the more time you need. You can deal with
this in two ways: one is to conceive of life after life, time not ending at all. This is one way, the Eastern
way, to create more space for the desire. Another is the Western way: to be more conscious of time and to
do many things in the allotted time period. There is one life: there is no possibility of further lives, this life
is all, so you have to do many things -- many, many things. You have to accommodate so many desires in
the allotted period. And this is why the West has become so conscious of time; in fact, time consciousness is
one of the most common aspects of the Western mind.
But either way, whenever you desire, you create time. Time is a fourth dimension of space, it is a sort of
space. Without time your desires cannot move, so any desire creates time and future; and then you can
postpone the present moment, which is not really time but existence.
So it is better to go deep into what is known to you, what is life to you. Go deep in it; whatever it may
be, go deep in it. Do not be on the surface, go into it to its ultimate depth. And the moment you begin to go
deep, fall deep, you come to a different dimension. It is not a going into the future, it is going deep into the
present, into this very moment.
For example, you are hearing me. You can hear very superficially, then only your ears are involved; that
is the first layer of hearing. You can say, "Of course I am listening," but only the ears are hearing, only the
body mechanism; your mind may be somewhere else. But if you can go deep, you can listen very intently
and the mind is also involved; then you are going deeper into this very moment. But even if your mind is
involved, your being may not be involved. If you are thinking about what I am saying, the mind is involved,
but there are still deeper depths. Your being may not be here at all; there may be unconscious currents
because of which you are not here. You can go even deeper; that means that the being is involved. Then you
are just vacant, not even thinking about it. Your mechanism is here, your mind is here, your being is here --
all focused. Then you go deep.
So whatever you are doing at the moment, go deep in it. The more deep you are in it, the nearer you will
be to the unknown. And the unknown is not something opposite to the known; it is something hidden in the
known. The known is just a screen.
So do not go into the future; do not seek. Just be here -- and be. In seeking you spread yourself out, but
in being you are intense, and that intensity, that total intensity in the moment, brings you to a certain
crystallization. In that total, intense moment, you are. That being, that happening of being, becomes the
door; and you have found it without seeking; you can get it without even seeking.
So I say: Do not seek it, and find!
All the devices and all the methods I use are just to make you more and more intense here and now, to
help you to forget the past and the future. Any movement of your body or mind can be used as a jumping
board: the emphasis is that you jump in the here and now.
Even dancing can be used, but then be just the dancing, not the dancer. The moment the dancer comes
in, dancing is destroyed. The seeker has come in, the time-oriented has come in; now the movement is
divided, dancing has become superficial, and you have gone far away.
When you are dancing, then be dancing, do not be the dancer, and the moment comes when you are just
the movement, when there is no division. This nondivided consciousness is meditation.
And you can use anything. If you are eating then eating can become a meditation -- if there is no eater.
If you are walking then walking can become a meditation -- if there is no walker. If you are loving then love
can become a deep meditation -- if there is no lover, the lover disappears. Love with a lover becomes
poisonous, but love without the lover becomes divine and something of the unknown suddenly opens.
We are divided and then we act. The actor is there: that is the problem. Why is the actor there? He is
there because of desiring, expectations, past memories, future longing. The actor is there -- he is the whole
accumulated past and the whole projected future. The actor misses only one thing: the moment, the present.
And everything is there in the moment -- everything of the past, everything of the future. This very moment
is just wasted, and this very moment is life. Everything else is just an action of the past or a dream of the
future -- it is nothing but dreams.
You have a very big, very great accumulation, but it is dead. The actor is the dead point in you. It is rich
with many ornaments of the past, much longing for the future; it looks very rich, but it is dead. And the
present moment is just a naked, atomic thing, very poor, poor in the sense that there is no accumulation of
the past and no projecting into the future. It is just a naked, bare existential moment. It looks poor, but it is
the only life possible. It is alive! And to be alive and poor is the only richness, while to be dead and rich is
the only poverty. That is why it happens that a beggar such as a Buddha or a Christ was the richest
possibility but a Midas is the poorest happening in the world.
In meditation only happenings can help, not fake methods. That is why there has always been so much
insistence on a living teacher. Books are bound to be fake; they cannot change you, they cannot be in touch
with you, they cannot move you. Doctrines cannot be alive, they are bound to be dead, so the East has
always insisted on the phenomenon of a teacher, of a master. And the insistence is really for this: that only a
master can be liquid, he can change anything. With him, even methods can be no methods, while with
scriptures, traditions, even no methods becomes methods, because the moment something is written, it is
dead.
Something is said: it is dead. A master is needed for continuously disturbing his own past assertions so
that nowhere does "fixedness" come in. The liquidity of the phenomenon must be there; only then,
happenings can happen.
So to me, a group that is working in meditation is a group that is doing something in the present
moment, not seeking anything. And the present doing may be just trivial. An onlooker, an outsider, may not
even be aware of what is being done; he may even think that the meditators have gone mad. They may be
jumping and crying, weeping and laughing; they may be doing anything. They may be just sitting silently,
or they may be creating mad noises, but whatever they are doing, they are doing it without a doer. Really,
they are allowing it to happen, not doing it; they are open to it.
In the beginning it is difficult. You do not want anything to happen without you because you want to be
the master. Nothing should happen of which you are not the master and the controller. So in the beginning it
is difficult. But, by and by, the more you feel the freedom that comes with the death of your controlling
mind -- the freshness that comes the moment you have relaxed controlling -- the more you can laugh. And
then, at a particular point, you begin to feel that the mind is the destructive thing in you, that the owner --
the possessor, the controller -- is your bondage.
You won't become aware of this by watching someone else but just by feeling it, step by step. Then, in a
sudden explosion, you are not there: the doer has disappeared and the doing alone remains. With that comes
freedom, with that comes awareness, with that you become totally aware. Rather, now you are only
awareness.
This is what I mean by meditation -- not seeking, not seeking for something, but just going deep inside,
in the present. And anything can be used for it, anything is as good as anything else. If you understand it,
then anything can be used as a meditational object or as meditation. That is why I tell you to do Dynamic
Meditation and be in a deep silence, in the happening.
QUESTION: IN HATHA YOGA THERE IS AN EXERCISE IN WHICH ONE TENSES EVERY MUSCLE IN
THE BODY AND THEN RELEASES THE TENSION AND BECOMES RELAXED. IS THIS SIMILAR TO
WHAT HAPPENS IN DYNAMIC MEDITATION?
Relaxation is basically existential. You cannot relax if, existentially, your attitude toward life is tense.
Then, even if you try to relax, it is impossible. In fact, to try to relax is absurd; effort, as such, is inimical to
relaxation. You cannot relax; you can only be relaxed.
Your very presence is inimical to relaxation. Relaxation means that you are absent, and through no
effort on your part can you be absent. Each and every effort will strengthen your presence; it is bound to
strengthen it. Whatever you do will be your act, you will be strengthened through it, you will be more
condensed through it, you will be more crystallized.
In this sense, you cannot relax. Relaxation can come to you only when you are not. Your very doing will
become a part of the ego, your very effort will be a continuity of yourself.
You are relaxed in the moment when you are not. Your very being is the tension; you cannot exist
without tension -- you are the tension.
Tension begins with a desire for that which is not. It is a tension between the past and the future. You
are like a bridge between two things, and whenever two things are connected, tension will be there. Man is a
bridge -- a bridge of desires -- but it is a rainbow bridge, not a steel bridge; it can evaporate.
When I say relaxation is existential, I mean by this: understand the tension; don't do anything with it,
just understand it.
You can understand tension, but you cannot understand relaxation; that is impossible. You can only
understand tension, so understand what it is, how it is, from where it comes; how it exists, by what means it
exists. Understand tension totally, and the minute you understand it, a moment is created in which there is
no tension. Then it is not only the body which is relaxed, the whole being is relaxed.
To relax the body is really not very difficult, but it has become more difficult with the advance of
civilization because the contact with the body is lost. We do not exist in the body; our existence has become
basically cerebral, mental.
You do not even love with your body, you love with your mind; the body follows just like a dead
weight. When you touch someone, it is not the body you touch; the sensitivity is not there. The mind
touches, but since minds cannot really touch, two bodies meet, but there is no communion. The bodies are
dead, so you can embrace, but it is only two dead bodies embracing. They come near, but they are not really
near. Nearness can only be there if you exist in the body, if you are inside the body.
We are outside our bodies, just like ghosts; around and around, but never inside. The more man has
become civilized, the less he is in contact with his own body. The contact is lost; that is why the body is
tense.
Body has its own automatic mechanism to relax. The body is tired, it is on the bed, but because you are
not there, it cannot relax. You must be in it, otherwise, the automatic mechanism becomes ineffective; it
cannot work without your presence. It needs you; it cannot go to sleep by itself. Sleep is lost, relaxation is
lost, because the contact with the body is lost.
You are not in your body, so your body cannot function adequately; it cannot function with its own
wisdom. It has a genetic, inborn wisdom of centuries, but because you are not in it, there is tension.
Otherwise, the physical body is basically automatic, it works automatically. You only have to be there; your
presence is needed, then it starts working.
Our minds are also full of tension. They need not be; the mind is tense because you are always creating
confusion. For example, a person who is thinking about sex is creating confusion because sex is not
something to be thought about; the mind center is not made for that. Sex has its own center, but you are
doing the work of the sex center through your mind. Even when you are in love you think about it, you do
not feel it; the feeling center is not working.
The more civilized man is, the more the center of the intellect is overburdened; other centers are not
working, not functioning. This, too, creates a tension because a center that should work, and has a particular
energy to work with, is left without anything to do. It then creates its own tensions, it becomes
overburdened by its own unused energy.
The mind center is overburdened by work. It is being made to feel, which it cannot do. Mind cannot
feel; it can only think. The categories of thinking are quite different from the categories of feeling, and not
only different, but diametrically opposite. The logic of the heart is not the logic of the mind.
Love has its own way of thinking, but it is not a mental way, so mind has to do things that it is not meant
to do. It becomes overburdened and there is tension. The situation is like this: the father is doing the work of
the child, and the child is doing the work of the father. This is the sort of confusion that is created by a
mental existence. If every center does its own work, there is relaxation.
Mind is not the only center. Because we function as if it is, we have destroyed the whole silence, the
whole relaxed attitude, the whole tuning of humanity with the universe. Mind has to work. It has a function,
but a very limited one; it is overburdened. Your whole education is concerned with only one center. You are
being educated as if you have only one center: the mind, the mathematical, the rational.
Life is not only rational; on the contrary, the greater part of life is irrational. Reason is just like a small
lighted island in the vast, dark, and mysterious ocean of irrationality. And this island is rooted in the ocean
of mystery -- the great ocean of mystery.
This lighted part is just a part. It is not the whole and must not be taken as the whole, otherwise tension
will be the result. The mysterious will take its revenge; the irrational will take its revenge.
You can see the results of this in the West. The West has overdone, overworked, one center -- the
rational -- and now the irrational is taking revenge. Revenge is there; it is disrupting the whole order -- the
anarchic, the undisciplined, the rebellious, the illogical, are erupting. It may be in music, painting, or
anything. The irrational is taking its revenge and the established order is being put in its place.
Reason is not the totality. When it is made to be so, the whole culture becomes tense. The same laws
that apply to the individual apply to the whole culture, to the whole society. These laws must be understood,
and the very understanding will begin to effect a change in you: the very understanding will become a
transformation.
Body has become tense because you are not in it, and mind has become tense because you have
overburdened it. But your spiritual being is never tense. I divide you into body, mind and spirit as a method
only. You are not divided -- these boundaries do not, in fact, exist -- but in order to help you to understand
things, the division will be useful.
The spiritual realm is never tense, but you are not in contact with it. A person who is not even in contact
with his body can never be in contact with the spirit because it is a deeper realm. If you are not even in
contact with your outer boundaries, you cannot be in contact with your inner centers.
The third realm, the spiritual, is relaxed; even this minute it is relaxed. In fact, it would be more accurate
to say that the spiritual realm is the realm of relaxation. There is no tension there because the reasons for
tension cannot exist in the third realm. You cannot exist without the third realm. You can be forgetful of it,
but you can never be without it because you are it. It is your being; it is pure existence.
You are not aware of the spiritual because you have so much tension in the body, so much tension in the
mind. But if you are not tense in the physical and mental realms, you will automatically know the bliss of
the spiritual, the relaxation of the spiritual. It comes to you; it has been waiting for you. Your whole
attention is so absorbed by the physical and the mental that there is no attention left to divert to the spiritual.
Only if the body and the mind are not tense can you delve into the spiritual, can you know the bliss of it.
The spiritual is never tense; it cannot be. There is no spiritual tension, only bodily tension, only mental
tension.
Bodily tension has been created by those who, in the name of religion, have been preaching anti-body
attitudes. In the West, Christianity has been emphatically antagonistic toward the body. A false division, a
gulf, has been created between you and your body; then your total attitude becomes tension creating. You
cannot eat in a relaxed way, you cannot sleep in a relaxed way; every bodily act becomes a tension. The
body is the enemy, but you cannot exist without it. You must remain with it, you must live with your
enemy, so there is constant tension; you can never relax.
Body is not your enemy, nor is it in any way unfriendly or even indifferent to you. The very existence of
the body is bliss. And the moment you take the body as a gift, as a divine gift, you will come back to the
body. You will love it, you will feel it -- and subtle are the ways of its feeling.
You cannot feel another's body if you have not felt your own, you cannot love another's body if you
have not loved your own; it is impossible. You cannot care for another person's body if you have not cared
for your own -- and no one cares! You may say that you care, but I insist: no one cares. Even if you seem to
care, you do not really care. You are caring for some other reason -- for the opinion of others, for the look in
someone else's eyes; you never care for your body for yourself. You do not love your body, and if you
cannot love it, you cannot be in it.
Love your body and you will feel a relaxation such as you have never felt before. Love is relaxing.
When there is love, there is relaxation. If you love someone -- if, between you and him or you and her, there
is love -- then with love comes the music of relaxation. Then relaxation is there.
When you are relaxed with someone, that is the only sign of love. If you cannot be relaxed with
someone, you are not in love; the other, the enemy, is always there. That is why Sartre has said, "The other
is hell." Hell is there for Sartre, it is bound to be. When there is no love flowing between the two, the other
is hell, but if there is love flowing in between, the other is heaven. So whether the other is heaven or hell
depends on whether there is love flowing in between.
Whenever you are in love, a silence comes. Language is lost; words become meaningless. You have
much to say and nothing to say at the same time. The silence will envelop you, and in that silence, love
flowers. You are relaxed. There is no future in love, there is no past; only when love has died is there a past.
You only remember a dead love, a living love is never remembered; it is living, there is no gap to remember
it; there is no space to remember it. Love is in the present; there is no future and no past.
If you love someone, you do not have to pretend. Then you can be what you are. You can put off your
mask and be relaxed. When you are not in love, you have to wear a mask. You are tense every moment
because the other is there; you have to pretend, you have to be on guard. You have to be either aggressive or
defensive: it is a fight, a battle -- you cannot be relaxed.
The bliss of love is more or less the bliss of relaxation. You feel relaxed, you can be what you are, you
can be nude in a sense, as you are. You need not be bothered about yourself, you need not pretend. You can
be open, vulnerable, and in that opening, you are relaxed.
This same phenomenon happens if you love your body; you become relaxed, you care about it. It is not
wrong, it is not narcissistic to be in love with your own body. In fact, it is the first step toward spirituality.
That is why Dynamic Meditation begins with the body. Through vigorous breathing the mind expands,
the consciousness expands; the whole body becomes a vibrating, living existence. Now the jump will be
easier. Now you can jump; thinking will be less of a barrier. You have become a child again: jumping,
vibrating, alive. The conditioning, the mental conditioning, is not there.
Your body is not so conditioned as your mind. Remember this: your mind is conditioned, but your body
is still a part of nature. All religions and religious thinkers -- who have been basically cerebral -- are against
the body because with the body, with the senses, the mind and its conditioning are lost. That is why they
have all been afraid of sex. With sex, the conditioned mind is lost; you again become part of the greater
biological sphere, the biosphere; you become one with it.
Mind is always against sex, because sex is the only thing in ordinary life that can rebel against the mind.
You have controlled the whole thing; only one thing remains uncontrolled. So mind is very much against
sex because it is the only remaining link between the body and you. If it can be denied completely, then you
can become totally cerebral and you are not a body at all.
The fear of sex is basically the fear of the body, because with sex the whole body becomes vibrating,
vital, living. The moment sex takes over the body, the whole mind is pushed back; it is not there. Breathing
takes it over; the breathing becomes vigorous, vital.
That is why I begin my meditation with breathing. With breathing, you begin to feel your whole body,
every corner of it; the body is flooded; you become one with it. Now it is possible for you to take a jump.
The jump that is taken in sex is a very small jump, while the jump that is taken in meditation is a very
great jump. In sex, you "jump" into someone else. Before that jump you need to be one with your body, and
in that jump you need to expand still more -- to another's body. Your consciousness spreads beyond your
body. In meditation you jump from your body to the whole body of the universe; you become one with it.
The second step of Dynamic Meditation is cathartic. Not only will you be one with your body, but all
the tensions that have been accumulated in the body must be thrown out. The body must become light,
unburdened, so the movements are to be vigorous, as vigorous as possible. Then the same thing that is
possible in dervish dancing, in sufi dancing, becomes possible. If your movements are vital and vigorous, a
moment will come when you will lose control. And that moment is needed. You must not be in control
because your control is the barrier, you are the barrier. Your controlling faculty -- your mind -- is the
barrier.
Go on moving. Of course, you will have to begin, but a moment will come when you will be taken over;
you will feel that the control is lost. You are on the brink, now you can take the jump. Now you have again
become a child. You have come back; all the conditioning is thrown. You do not care for anything; you do
not care for what others think. Now everything that has been put into you by society is thrown; you have
become just a dancing particle in the universe.
When you have thrown everything in the second stage of Dynamic Meditation, only then is the third
stage possible. Your identity will be lost, your image will be broken, because whatever you know about
yourself is not about yourself but only a labeling. You have been told you are this or that, and you have
become identified with it. But with vigorous movement, with the cosmic dance, all identifications will be
lost. You will be, for the first time, as you must have been when you were born. And with this new birth you
will be a new person.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #6
Chapter title: Kundalini: The Awakening of the Life Force
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF06
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No theoretical knowledge ever helps and no anatomical visualization of kundalini is really meaningful
for meditation. When I say this I do not mean that there is nothing like kundalini or chakras. Kundalini is
there, chakras are there, but no knowledge helps in any way. Rather, it can hinder. It can become a barrier
for so many reasons.
One reason is that any knowledge about kundalini or about esoteric paths of bioenergy -- the inner paths
of elan vital -- is generalized. It differs from individual to individual; the root is not going to be the same.
With A it will be different, with B it will be different, with C it will be different. Your inner life has an
individuality, so when you acquire something through theoretical knowledge it is not going to help -- it may
hinder -- because it is not about you. It cannot be about you. You will only know about yourself when you
go within.
There are chakras, but the number differs with each individual. One may have seven, one may have
nine; one may have more, one may have less. That is the reason why so many different traditions have
developed. Buddhists talk of nine chakras, Hindus talk of seven, Tibetans talk of four -- and they are all
right!
The root of kundalini, the passage through which kundalini passes, is also different with each individual.
The more you go in, the more individual you are. For instance, in your body your face is the most individual
part, and in the face the eyes are even more individual. The face is more alive than any other part of the
body; that is why it takes on an individuality. You may not have noticed that with a particular age --
particularly with sexual maturity -- your face begins to assume a shape that will continue, more or less, for
the whole life. Before sexual maturity the face changes much, but with sexual maturity your individuality is
fixed and given a pattern, and now the face will be more or less the same.
The eyes are even more alive than the face, and they are so individual that every moment they change.
Unless one attains enlightenment, the eyes are never fixed. Enlightenment is another kind of maturity.
With sexual maturity the face becomes fixed, but there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed.
You cannot see any change in Buddha's eyes: his body will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue
to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only
door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change.
Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same. Eyes are expressive of the inner world.
But kundalini is still deeper.
No theoretical knowledge is helpful. When you have some theoretical knowledge, you begin to impose
it on yourself. You begin to visualize things to be the way you have been taught, but they may not
correspond to your individual situation. Then much confusion is created.
One has to feel the chakras, not know about them. You have to feel; you have to send feelers inside
yourself. Only when you feel your chakras, and your kundalini and its passage, is it helpful; otherwise, it is
not helpful. In fact, knowledge has been very destructive as far as the inner world is concerned. The more
knowledge gained, the less the possibility of feeling the real, the authentic, things.
You begin to impose what you know upon yourself. If someone says, "Here is the chakra, here is the
center," then you begin to visualize your chakra at that spot; and it may not be there at all. Then you will
create imaginary chakras. You can create; the mind has the capacity. You can create imaginary chakras, and
then, because of your imagination, a flow will begin that will not be kundalini but will be simple
imagination -- a completely illusory, dreamlike phenomenon.
Once you can visualize centers and can create an imaginary kundalini, then you can create everything.
Then imaginary experiences will follow, and you will develop a very false world inside you. The world that
is without is illusory, but not so illusory as the one you can create inside.
All that is within is not necessarily real or true, because imagination is also within, dreams are also
within. The mind has a faculty -- a very powerful faculty -- to dream, to create illusions, to project. That is
why it is good to proceed in meditation completely unaware of kundalini, of chakras. If you stumble upon
them, then it is good. You may come to feel something; only then, ask. You may begin to feel a chakra
working, but let the feeling come first. You may feel energy rising up, but let the feeling come first. Do not
imagine, do not think about it, do not make any intellectual effort to understand beforehand; no pre-notion is
needed. Not only is it not needed, but it is positively harmful.
And another thing: kundalini and the chakras do not belong to your anatomy, to your physiology.
Chakras and kundalini belong to your subtle body, to your sukshma sharira, not to this body, the gross
body. Of course, there are corresponding spots. The chakras are part of your sukshma sharira, but your
physiology and anatomy have spots that correspond to them. If you feel an inner chakra, only then can you
feel the corresponding spot; otherwise you can dissect the whole body, but nothing like chakras will be
found.
All the talk and all the so-called evidence and all the scientific claims that your gross body has
something like kundalini and chakras is nonsense, absolute nonsense. There are corresponding spots, but
those spots can only be felt when you feel the real chakras. With the dissection of your gross body nothing
can be found; there is nothing. So the question is not of anatomy.
One thing more: it is not necessary to pass through chakras. It is not necessary; one can just bypass
them. It is also not necessary that you will feel kundalini before enlightenment. The phenomenon is very
different from what you may think. Kundalini is not felt because it is rising; kundalini is only felt if you do
not have a very clear passage. If the passage is completely clear-cut, then the energy flows but you cannot
feel it.
You feel it when there is something there that resists the flow. If the energy flows upward and you have
blocks in the passage, only then do you feel it. So the person who feels more kundalini is really blocked:
there are many blocks in the passage, so the kundalini cannot flow.
When there is resistance, then the kundalini is felt. You cannot feel energy directly unless there is
resistance. If I move my hand and there is no resistance, the movement will not be felt. The movement is
felt because the air resists, but it is not felt as much as when a stone resists; then I will feel the movement
more. And in a vacuum I will not feel the movement at all -- so it is relative.
Buddha never talked about kundalini. It is not that there was no kundalini in his body, but the passage
was so clear that there was no resistance. Thus, he never felt it. Mahavira never talked about kundalini.
Because of this, a very false notion was created, and then Jainas, who followed Mahavira, thought that
kundalini was all nonsense, that there was nothing like it. Thus, because Mahavira himself did not feel
kundalini, twenty-five centuries of Jaina tradition has continued to deny it, claiming it does not exist. But
Mahavira's reason for not talking about it was very different. Because there were no blocks in his body, he
never felt it.
So it is not necessary for you to feel kundalini. You may not feel it at all. And if you do not feel
kundalini, then you will bypass chakras, because the working of the chakras is needed only to break the
blocks. Otherwise, they are not needed.
When there is a block, and the kundalini is blocked, then the nearby chakra begins to move because of
the blocked kundalini. It becomes dynamic. The chakra begins to move because of the blocked kundalini
and it moves so fast that, because of the movement, a particular energy is created which breaks the block.
If the passage is clear no chakra is needed, and you will never feel anything. Really, the existence of
chakras is just to help you. If kundalini is blocked, then the help is just nearby. Some chakra will take the
energy that is being blocked. If the energy cannot move further it will fall back. Before it falls back the
chakra will absorb the energy completely, and the kundalini will move in the chakra. Through movement
the energy becomes more vital, it becomes more alive, and when it again comes to the block it can break it.
So it is just an arrangement, a help.
If kundalini moves and there are no blocks, then you will never feel any chakras. That is why someone
may feel nine chakras, someone else may feel ten chakras, and someone else may feel only three or four, or
one, or none. It depends. In actual fact, there are infinite chakras and at every movement, every step of the
kundalini, a chakra is by the side to help. If the help is needed, it can be given.
That is why I insist that a theoretical acquaintance is not helpful. And meditation as such is not really
concerned with kundalini at all. If kundalini comes, that is another thing -- but meditation has nothing to do
with it. Meditation can be explained without even mentioning kundalini; there is no need. And by
mentioning kundalini it creates even more conflicts to explain the thing. Meditation can be explained
directly; you need not bother about chakras, you begin with meditation. If the passage is blocked you may
come to feel kundalini, and chakras will be there, but that is completely nonvoluntary. You must remember
that it is nonvoluntary; your volition is not needed at all.
The deeper the path, the more nonvoluntary. I can move my hand -- this is a voluntary path -- but I
cannot move my blood. I can try. Years and years of training can make a person capable of making blood
circulation voluntary -- hatha yoga can do that; it has been done, it is not impossible, but it is futile. Thirty
years of training just to control the movement of the blood is meaningless and stupid because with the
control comes nothing. The blood circulation is nonvoluntary; your will is not needed. You take food and
the moment it goes in, your will is not needed: the body machinery, the body mechanism, has taken over,
and it goes on doing whatever is needed. Your sleep is not voluntary, your birth is not voluntary, your death
is not voluntary. These are nonvoluntary mechanisms.
Kundalini is still deeper, deeper than your death, deeper than your birth, deeper than your blood,
because kundalini is a circulation of your second body. Blood is the circulation of your physiological body;
kundalini is the circulation of your etheric body. It is absolutely nonvoluntary; even a hatha yogi cannot do
anything with it voluntarily.
One has to go into meditation, then the energy begins to move. The part that is to be done by you is
meditation. If you are deep in it, then the inner energy begins to move upward, and you will feel the change
of flow. It will be felt in so many ways: even physiologically the change can be known.
For example, ordinarily, biologically, it is a sign of good health for your feet to be warm and your head
to be cool. Biologically it is a healthy sign. When the reverse occurs -- the feet become cool and the head
becomes warm -- a person is ill. But the same thing happens when the kundalini flows upward: the feet
become cool.
Really, the warmth in the feet is nothing but sex energy flowing downward. The moment the vital
energy, the kundalini, begins to flow upward, sex energy follows. It begins to flow upward: the feet become
cool and the head becomes warm. Biologically it is better for the feet to be warmer than the head, but
spiritually it is healthier for the feet to be cooler because this is a sign that the energy is flowing upward.
Many diseases may begin to occur once the energy begins to flow upward, because biologically you
have disturbed the whole organism. Buddha died very ill, Mahavira died very ill, Raman Maharshi died
with cancer; Ramakrishna died with cancer. And the reason is that the whole biological system is disturbed.
Many other reasons are given, but they are nonsense.
Jainas have created many stories because they could not conceive that Mahavira could have been ill. For
me, the contrary is the case: I cannot conceive how he could have been completely healthy. He couldn't be,
because this was going to be his last birth, and the whole biological system had to break down. A system
that had been continuous for millennia had to break down. He could not be healthy; in the end he had to be
very ill. And he was! But it was very difficult for his followers to conceive that Mahavira was ill.
There was only one explanation for illness in those days. If you were suffering from a particular disease,
it meant your karmas your past deeds, had been bad. If Mahavira was suffering from a disease, then it would
have meant that he was still under his karmic influence. This could not be so, so an ingenious story was
invented: that Goshalak, a competitor of Mahavira, was using evil forces against him. But this was not the
case at all.
The biological, natural flow is downward; the spiritual flow is upward. And the whole organism is
meant for the downward flow.
You may begin to feel many changes in the body, but the first changes will come in the subtle body.
Meditation is just the means to create a bridge from the gross to the subtle. When I say "meditation" I mean
only that: if you can jump out of your gross body -- that is what is meant by meditation. But to take this
jump you will need the help of your gross body; you will have to use it as a stepping stone.
From any extreme point, you can take the jump. Fasting has been used to take one to an extreme. With
long, continuous fasting, you come to the verge. The human body can ordinarily sustain a ninety-day fast,
but then, the moment the body is completely exhausted, the moment the reservoir that has been accumulated
for emergencies has been depleted -- at that moment, one of two things is possible. If you do nothing, death
may occur, but if you use this moment for meditation, the jump may occur.
If you do not do anything, if you just go on fasting, death may occur. Then it will be a suicide.
Mahavira, who experimented more deeply with fasting than anyone else in the whole history of human
evolution, is the only man who allowed his followers a spiritual suicide. He called it santhara: that
on-the-verge point when both things are possible. In a single moment, you may either die or you can jump.
If you use some technique, you can jump; then, Mahavira says, it is not a suicide, but a very great spiritual
explosion. Mahavira was the only man -- the only one -- who has said that if you have the courage, even
suicide can be used for your spiritual progress.
From any verge point the jump is possible. Sufis have used dancing. A moment comes in dancing when
you begin to feel unearthly. With a real Sufi dancer, even the audience begins to feel unearthly. Through
body movements, rhythmic movements, the dancer soon begins to feel that he is different from the body,
separate from the body. One has to begin the movement but soon a nonvoluntary mechanism of the body
takes over.
You begin, but if the end is also yours then the dancing was just ordinary dancing. But if you begin and
by the end you feel as if somewhere in between the dancing was taken over by a nonvoluntary mechanism,
then it has become a dervish dance. You move so fast that the body shakes and becomes nonvoluntary.
That is the point where you can go crazy or you can jump. You may go mad, because a nonvoluntary
mechanism has taken over your body movement. It is beyond your control: you cannot do anything. You
may just go mad and never be able to come back again from this nonvoluntary movement. This is the point
where there is either madness or, if you know the technique to jump, meditation.
That is why Sufis have always been known as mad people. They have been known as mad! Ordinarily,
they are mad. There is also a sect in Bengal that is just like the Sufis: Baul fakirs. They move from village to
village dancing and singing. The very word baul means bawla, mad. They are people who are mad.
Madness happens many times, but if you know the technique, then meditation can happen. It always
happens on the verge; that is why mystics have always used the term "the sword's edge." Either madness
may happen or meditation may happen, and every method uses your body as a sword's edge from which
either one or the other is possible.
Then what is the technique to jump into meditation? I have talked about two: fasting and dancing. All
techniques of meditation are to push you to the verge where you can take the jump, but the jump itself can
be taken only through a very simple, very nonmethodical method.
If you can be aware at the very moment when fasting has led you to the precipice of death, if you can be
aware at the moment when death is going to set in, if you can be aware, then there is no death. And not only
is there no death this time, then there is no death forever. You have jumped! When the moment is so intense
that you know in one second it will be beyond you, when you know that should a second be lost you will
not be able to come back again, be aware -- and then jump. Awareness is the method. And because
awareness is the method, zen people say that there is no method. Awareness is not a method at all. That is
why Krishnamurti will go on saying that there is no method.
Of course, awareness is not really a method at all; but I still call it a method because if you cannot be
aware, then at the exact moment that the jump is possible, you will be lost. So if someone says, "Only
awareness will do," that may be true for one out of ten thousand people, but that one will be one who has
come to the point where either madness is possible or death is possible. He has come to that point anyway.
And with the others, the majority of people, just talking about awareness will not do. First, they must be
trained. To be aware in ordinary situations will not do. And you cannot be aware in ordinary situations. The
mind's stupidity has such a long history -- the lethargy of it, the laziness of it, the unconsciousness of it, has
been going on for so long, that just by hearing Krishnamurti or me or anyone else you can never hope to be
aware. And it will be difficult to be aware of those same things that you have done without awareness so
many times.
You have come to your office completely unaware that you have been moving: you have turned, you
have walked, you have opened the door. For your whole life you have been doing it. Now it has become a
nonvoluntary mechanism; it has been removed from your consciousness completely.
Then Krishnamurti says, "Be aware when you are walking." But you have been walking without ever
being aware. The habit has set in so deeply, it has become a part of the bones and blood; now it is very
difficult.
You can only be aware in emergencies, in sudden emergencies. Someone puts a gun on your chest: you
can be aware because it is a situation that you have never practiced. But if you are familiar with the
situation, you will not be aware at all.
Fasting is to create an emergency, and such an emergency as you have never known. So one who has
been practicing fasting may not be helped through it; he will need longer periods to fast. Or, if you have
never danced, you can be helped easily through dancing; but if you are an expert dancer, Sufi dervish
dancing will not do. It will not do at all because you are so perfect, so efficient, and efficiency means that
the thing is now being done by the nonvoluntary part of the mind. Efficiency always means that.
That is why one hundred and twelve methods of meditation have been developed. One may not do for
you; another may. And the one which will be most helpful is the one which is completely unknown to you.
If you have never been trained in a particular method at all, then an emergency is created very soon. And in
that emergency, be aware!
So be concerned with meditation and not with kundalini. And when you are aware, things will begin to
happen in you. For the first time you will become aware of an inner world that is greater, vaster, more
extensive than the universe; energies unknown, completely unknown, will begin to flow in you. Phenomena
never heard of, never imagined or dreamed of, will begin to happen. But with each person they differ, so it
is good not to talk about them.
They differ; that is why the old traditional emphasis on a guru is there. Scriptures will not do; only the
guru will do. And gurus have always been against the scriptures, although the scriptures talk about gurus
and praise gurus. The very concept of the guru is in opposition to the scriptures. The well known proverb
Guru bin gnana nahee -- without the guru there will be no knowledge -- does not really mean that without
the guru there will be no knowledge. It means that with only the scriptures there is no knowledge.
A living guru is needed, not a dead book. A book cannot know what type of individual you are. A book
is always generalized, it cannot be particular; that is impossible, the very possibility is not there. Only a
living person can be aware of your needs, of things which are going to happen to you.
This is really very paradoxical: scriptures talk about gurus -- Guru bin gnana nahee, no knowledge
without the guru -- but gurus are symbolically against scriptures. The very concept that the guru will give
you knowledge does not mean that he will provide knowledge. Rather, it means that only a living person
can be of any help. Why? Because he can know the individual.
No book can know the individual. Books are meant for no one in particular, they are meant for
everyone. And when a method is to be given, your individuality has to be taken into account very, very
exactly, scientifically. This knowledge that the guru has to transfer has always been transferred secretly,
privately, from guru to disciple.
Why the secrecy? Secrecy is the only means for transference of knowledge. The disciple is ordered not
to talk about it to anyone. The mind wants to talk. If you know something, it is very difficult to keep it a
secret; this is one of the most difficult things, but it has always been the way of the gurus, the way of the
teachers. They will give you something with the condition that it is not to be talked about. Why -- why this
secrecy?
So many people say that truth needs no secrecy, it needs no privacy. This is nonsense. Truth needs more
privacy than nontruth because it can prove fatal to just anybody; it can prove dangerous. It has been given to
a particular individual; it is meant only for him and for no one else. He should not give it to anyone else
until he himself comes to the point where his individuality is lost. This must be understood.
A guru is a person whose individuality is lost. Only then can he look deeply into your individuality. If
he himself is an individual, he can interpret you, but he will never be able to know you. For example, if I am
here and I say something about you, it is I who am talking about you. It is not about you; rather, it is about
me. I cannot help you because I cannot really know you at all. Whenever I know you, it is in a roundabout
way, by knowing myself.
This point of my being here must disappear. I must be just an absence. Only then can I go deep inside
you without any interpretation; only then can I know you as you are, not according to me. And only then
can I help. Hence, the secrecy.
So it is good not to talk about kundalini and chakras. Only meditation is to be taught and to be listened
to and to be understood. Then, everything else will just follow.
Kundalini is not itself a life force. Rather, it is a particular passage for the life force, a way. But the life
force can take other ways also, so it is not necessary to pass through kundalini. It is possible that one may
reach enlightenment without passing through kundalini -- but kundalini is the easiest passage, the shortest
one.
If the life force passes through kundalini, then the brahma randhra will be the terminal point. But if the
life force takes another route -- and infinite routes are possible -- then the brahma randhra will not be the
terminus. So the flowering of the brahma randhra is only a possibility, a potentiality, if the life force passes
through kundalini.
There are yogas that will not even mention kundalini; then there is nothing like the brahma randhra. But
this is the easiest route, so ordinarily ninety percent of the persons who realize pass through kundalini.
Kundalini and the chakras are not located in the physical body. They belong to the etheric body, but they
have corresponding points within the physical body. It is like when you feel love and you put your hand on
your heart. Nothing like "love" is there, but your heart, your physical heart, is a corresponding point. When
you put your hand on your heart, you are putting your hand at the chakra that belongs to the etheric body,
and this point is approximately parallel to your physical heart.
Kundalini is part of the etheric body, so whatever you achieve as progress on the path of kundalini does
not die with your physical body; it goes with you. Whatever is achieved will remain with you because it is
not a part of your physical body. If it were a part of your physical body, then with each death it would be
lost and you would have to begin from the very beginning. But if someone reaches the third chakra, this
progress will remain with him in his next life. It will go with him; it is stored in the etheric body.
When I say that the life energy goes through kundalini, I mean kundalini as a passage -- the whole
passage connecting the seven chakras. These chakras are not in the physical body, so everything that can be
said about kundalini is being said about the etheric body.
When the life force passes through kundalini, the chakras will begin to vibrate and flower. The moment
energy comes to them, they become alive. It is just like when hydro-electricity is created; the force and
pressure of the water rotate the dynamo. If there were no pressure and no water, the dynamo would stop; it
would not work. The dynamo rotates because of the pressure. In the same way, the chakras are there, but
they are dead until the moment the life force penetrates them; only then do they begin to rotate.
That is why they are called chakras. "Chakra" is not exactly translated by the word center, because
center means something static and chakra means something moving. So the right translation would be
wheel, not center; or, a dynamic center, or a rotating center, a moving center.
Chakras are centers until the life force comes to them. The moment the life force comes to them, they
begin to be chakras. Now they are not centers, they are wheels, rotating. And each wheel, by rotating,
creates a new sort of energy. This energy is used again to rotate further chakras. So as the life force passes
through each chakra, it becomes more vital, more alive.
Kundalini is the passage through which the life force moves. The life force is located in the sex center,
stored in the sex center, the muladhar. It can be used as sex energy; then it generates a particular life, a
biological life. Then too it creates movements, then too it creates more energy; but this is biological. If this
same energy moves upward, the passage of kundalini is opened.
The sex center, the muladhar, is the first to open. It can open either toward biological generation or it
can open toward spiritual generation. The muladhar has two openings, a lower one and an upper one. In the
passage of kundalini, the highest center is the sahasrar, of which the brahma randhra is the middle point.
The opening of the brahma randhra is one way toward self realization.
Other ways are also possible in which the passage of kundalini is not used, but they are more arduous. In
these other methods there is no question of kundalini, then there is no movement through this passage.
There are Hindu methods: raja yoga, mantra yoga, and all the many techniques of tantra. There are Christian
methods, Buddhist methods, zen methods, taoist methods. They are not concerned with kundalini
awakening; that passage is not used. They use other passages, passages that do not even belong to the
etheric body. Astral passages can be used. The astral body, the third body, has its own passage. The mental
body, the fourth body, has its own passage. All of the seven bodies have their own passages.
There are many yogas that have nothing to do with kundalini. Only hatha yoga uses kundalini as a
passage. But it is the most scientific and the least difficult. It is an easier step-by-step method for gradual
awakening than the other yogas.
Even if the kundalini passage is not used, there are sometimes sudden awakenings of the kundalini.
Sometimes things happen that are beyond your capacity, sometimes things happen that you cannot conceive;
then you are completely shattered. Other passages have their own preparations. Tantric or occult methods
are not kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga is only one of so many methods, but it is better to be concerned with
just one.
The Dynamic Meditation method that I am using is concerned with kundalini. It is easier to work with
kundalini because it is the second body that you are concerned with. The more deeply you go -- with the
third or the fourth body -- the more difficult it becomes. The second body is the nearest one to your physical
body, and there are corresponding points in your physical body, so it is easier.
If you work with the third body, the corresponding points are in the second body. If you work with the
fourth, the corresponding points are in the third. Then your physical body is not concerned; you cannot feel
anything at all in your physical body. But with kundalini you can feel each step accurately, and you know
where you are. Then you are more confident. With the other methods you will have to learn techniques that
will help you to feel the corresponding points in the second body or in the third body, and that takes its own
time.
The other methods will deny kundalini, but their denial is not correct; they deny it because they are not
concerned with it. Kundalini has its own methodology; if you are working with a zen method, you should
not be concerned with kundalini.
But sometimes, even in working with another method, kundalini comes, because the seven bodies
penetrate one another; they are interlinked. So if you are working with the astral body, the third body, the
second body may begin to work. It may get a spark from the third.
The opposite is not possible. If you are working with the second body, the third body will not get ignited
because the second is lower than the third. But if you are working with the third, you are creating energy
that can come to the second without any effort on your part. Energy flows to lower fields. Your second body
is lower than the third, so energy generated in the third may sometimes flow to it.
Kundalini may be felt through other methods, but those who teach methods that are not concerned with
kundalini will not allow you to pay attention to it. If you pay attention to it, more and more energy will
come; the whole method that was not concerned with kundalini will be shattered. They do not know
anything about kundalini, so they do not know how to work with it.
Teachers of other methods will deny kundalini completely. They will say it is nonsense; they will say it
is imagination; they will say you are just projecting: "Do not be concerned with it, do not be attentive to it."
And if you are not attentive to it and you go on working on the third body, by and by the kundalini will stop.
Energy will no longer come to the second body. Then it is better.
So if you are concerned with any method, be concerned with it totally. Don't be involved in any other
method, don't even think about any other method, because then it will become confusing. And the passage
of kundalini is so subtle and so unknown that confusion will be harmful.
My method of Dynamic Meditation is concerned with kundalini. Even if you just go on watching your
breath, it will be helpful to kundalini because breath, accompanied by prana, the life energy, is concerned
with the etheric body, the second body. It, too, is not concerned with your physical body. It is being taken
from your physical body, it is being drawn from your physical body, but your physical body is just the door.
Prana is concerned with the etheric body. The lungs are doing the breathing, but doing it for the etheric
body. Your physical body, the first body, is working for the etheric, the second body. In the same way, the
etheric works for the astral, the third body, and the astral works for the mental, the fourth body.
Your physical body is the door for the second body. The second body is so subtle that it cannot be
concerned with the material world directly, so first your physical body transmutes every material into vital
forms; then these can become food for the second body.
Everything taken from the senses gets transformed into vital forms; this then becomes food for the
second body. Then the second body transforms this into even more subtle forms, and this becomes food for
the third body.
It is like this: you cannot eat mud, but in vegetables the elements of the mud are transformed; then it can
be eaten. The vegetable world transforms the mud into a living, subtle form; now you can take it in. You
cannot eat grass; a cow does it for you. It goes into the cow, and the cow transforms it into milk; then you
can take it, you can drink the milk.
Just like this your first body takes matter into it, transforming it into vital forms; then the second body
takes it. Breath is being taken by your lungs: the lungs are machines, working for the second body. If the
second body dies, the lungs remain all right, but there is no breathing; breath has gone. The second body is
the master of the first body, and the third body is the master of the second body. Every lower body is a
servant to the upper one.
So awareness of breathing is helpful in kundalini practice. It generates energy; it conserves energy and
helps the life force to go upward.
My whole method is concerned with kundalini. Once the method has been grasped, everything can be
done by it. Now, nothing more is needed.
The last chakra, the sahasrar, can be reached through any method. Sahasrar and brahma randhra are the
names given to the seventh chakra in kundalini yoga. If you do not work on kundalini, if you work on the
third body, then too you will reach this point, but it will not be known as brahma randhra, and the first six
chakras will not be there. You have gone through another passage, so the milestones will be different, but
the end will be the same. All the seven bodies are connected with the seventh chakra, so from anywhere one
can reach it.
One must not be concerned with two passages, with two methods; otherwise, confusion will be created
and the inner energy will be diverted into two channels. Any method should channel the whole energy into
one dimension. That is what my method of Dynamic Meditation does, and that is why it begins with ten
minutes of deep, fast breathing.
QUESTION: IS THE FEELING OF KUNDALINI SIMILAR TO THE MOVEMENT OF A SERPENT?
No, it is different. There may be a person who has never seen a snake. If his kundalini awakens, he
cannot conceive of it as "serpent power"; it is impossible because the symbol is not there. Then he will feel
it in different ways. This has to be understood.
In the West they cannot conceive of kundalini as serpent power because the serpent is not a reality in
their ordinary lives. It was in ancient India: the serpent was your neighbor, your day-to-day neighbor; and it
was one of the most powerful things perceived, with the most beautiful movements. So the serpent symbol
was chosen to represent the phenomenon of kundalini. But elsewhere the serpent cannot be the symbol; it
becomes unnatural. Snakes are not known; then you cannot conceive of it, you cannot even imagine it.
Symbols are there and they are meaningful as far as your personality is concerned, but a particular
symbol is meaningful only if it is real to you, only if it fits into your mental makeup.
QUESTION: IS KUNDALINI A PSYCHIC PHENOMENON?
When you ask, "Is it psychic?" the fear is there that if it is psychic it is unreal. The psychic has its own
reality. Psychic means another realm of reality: the nonmaterial. In the mind, reality and materiality have
become synonymous, but they are not; reality is much greater than materiality. Materiality is only one
dimension of reality. Even a dream has its own reality. It is nonmaterial, but it is not unreal; it is psychic,
but do not take it as unreal. It is just another dimension of reality.
Even a thought has its own reality, though it is not material. Everything has its own reality, and there are
realms of reality and grades of reality and different dimensions of reality. But in our minds materiality has
become the only reality, so when we say "psychic," when we say "mental," the thing is condemned as
unreal.
I am saying that kundalini is symbolic, it is psychic; the reality is psychic. But the symbol is something
that you have given to it; it is not inherent in it.
The phenomenon is psychic. Something rises in you; there is a very forceful rising. Something goes
from below toward your mind. It is a forceful penetration; you feel it, but whenever you are to express it, a
symbol comes. Even if you begin to understand it, you use a symbol. And you do not only use a symbol
when you express the phenomenon to others: you yourself cannot understand it without any symbol.
When we say "rising," this too is a symbol. When we say "four," this too is a symbol. When we say "up"
and "down," these are symbols; in reality nothing is up and nothing is down. In reality there are existential
feelings, but no symbols by which to understand and express these feelings. So when you understand, a
metaphor comes in. You say, "It is just like a serpent." Then it becomes just like a serpent. It assumes the
form of your symbol; it begins to look like your conception. You mold it into a particular pattern, otherwise
you cannot understand it.
When it comes to your mind that something has begun to open and flower, you will have to conceive of
what is happening in some way. The moment thought comes in, thought brings its own category. So you
will say "flowering," you will say "opening," you will say "penetration." The thing itself can be understood
through so many metaphors. The metaphor depends on you, it depends on your mind. And what it depends
on, depends on so many things -- for example, your life experiences.
Two hundred, three hundred years from now, it is possible that there will be no snakes on earth, because
man kills everything that proves antagonistic to him. Then "snake" will just be a historical word, a word in
books; it will not be a reality. It is not even a reality to most of the world today. Then the force will be lost;
the beauty will not be there. The symbol will be dead, and you will have to conceive of kundalini in a new
way.
It may become an upsurge of electricity. "Electricity" will be more congenial, more appropriate to the
mind than "snake." It may become just like a jet going upward, a rocket going to the moon. The speed will
be more appropriate; it will be like a jet. If you can feel it, and your whole mind can conceive of it just like a
jet, it will become just like a jet. The reality is something else, but the metaphor is given by you; you have
chosen it because of your experiences, because it is meaningful to you.
Because yoga developed in an agricultural society, it has agricultural symbols: a flower, a snake,
etcetera -- but they are just symbols. Buddha did not even talk about kundalini, but if he had, he would not
have talked about serpent power; nor would Mahavira have talked about it. They came from royal families:
the symbols that were congenial to other people were not congenial to them. They used other symbols.
Buddha and Mahavira came from royal palaces. The snake was not a reality there. But to the peasants it
was a great reality, one could not remain unacquainted with it. And it was dangerous too; one had to be
aware of it. But to Buddha and Mahavira it was not a reality at all.
Buddha could not talk of snakes; he talked of flowers. Flowers were known to him, more known to him
than to anybody else. He had seen many flowers, but only living ones. The palace gardeners were instructed
by his father to see that no dying flower would be seen by him, Gautama. He was to see only young flowers,
so the whole night the gardens were prepared for him. In the morning when he came, not a dead leaf, not a
dead flower, could be seen, only flowers coming to life.
So flowering was a reality to him in a way in which it is not to us. Then when he came to his realization,
he spoke about it as a process of flowers and flowers, opening and opening. The reality is something else,
but the metaphor comes from Buddha.
These metaphors are not unreal, they are not just poetry. They correspond to your nature; you belong to
them, they belong to you. The denial of symbols has proved drastic and dangerous. You have denied and
denied everything that is not materially real, and rituals and symbols have taken their revenge; they come
back again, they get through. They are there in your clothes, in your temples, in your poetries, your deeds.
The symbols will have their revenge, they will come back. They cannot be denied because they belong to
your nature.
The human mind cannot think in relative, purely abstract, terms. It cannot. Reality cannot be conceived
of in terms of pure mathematics: we can only conceive of it in symbols. The connection with symbols is
basic to the human character. In fact, it is only the human mind that creates symbols; animals cannot create
them.
A symbol is a living picture. Whenever something inward happens you have to use outward symbols.
Whenever you begin to feel something, the symbol comes automatically, and the moment the symbol comes
the force is molded into that particular symbol. In this way, kundalini becomes just like a snake: it becomes
a serpent. You will feel it and see it, and it will be even more alive than a living snake. You will feel the
kundalini as a snake because you cannot feel an abstraction. You cannot!
We have created idols of God because we cannot perceive an abstraction. God becomes meaningless as
an abstraction; he becomes just mathematical. We know that the word god is not God, but we have to use
the word. The word is a symbol. We know that the word god is a symbol, a term, and not actually God, but
we will have to use it. And this is the paradox: when you know that something is not a fact, but also know
that it is not a fiction, that it is a necessity, and a real one, then you must transcend the symbol. Then you
must be beyond it, and you must know the beyond also.
But the mind cannot conceive of the beyond, and the mind is the only instrument you have. Through it,
every conception must come to you. So you will feel the symbol: it will become real. And to another person
another symbol may become as real as your symbol has become to you; then there is controversy. To every
person his symbol is authentic, real. But we are obsessed with concrete reality. It must be real to us,
otherwise it cannot be real.
We can say, "This tape recorder is real," because it is real to us all; it has an objective reality. But yoga
is concerned with subjective reality. Subjective reality is not as real as objective reality, but it is real in its
own way.
The obsession with the objective must go. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, but the
moment you conceive of it, you give it a fragrance of your own. You give it a name of your own, you give it
a metaphor of your own. And this way of perceiving it is bound to be individual: even if someone
experiences the same thing, the records will differ. Even two snakes will differ, because the metaphor has
come from two different individuals.
So these metaphors -- that the feeling of kundalini is like the movement of a serpent -- are just symbolic,
but they correspond with reality. The same movement is there; the subtle movement, just like a snake, is
there. The force is there, the golden appearance is there -- and all of this corresponds to the symbol of the
snake. So if that symbol is congenial to you, it is all right.
But it may not be congenial; so never say to anybody that what has happened to you is bound to happen
to him. Never say that to anyone. It may be, or it may not be. The symbol is appropriate for you, it may not
be for him. If this much can be understood, there is no reason for dissension.
Differences have come about because of symbols. A Mohammed cannot conceive of a Buddha's symbol.
It is impossible! The environments of the two were so different. Even the word god can be a burden if it is
not conceived of as a symbol that corresponds to your individuality.
For example, Mohammed could not conceive of God as compassion. Compassion did not exist
anywhere in his environment. Everything was so terrifying, so dangerous, that God had to be conceived of
differently. Crossing from one country to the next, slaughtering, the people in Mohammed's environment
could not conceive of a God that was not cruel. An uncruel God, a compassionate God, would have been
unreal to them because the concept wouldn't have corresponded to their reality.
To a Hindu, God is seen through the environment. The nature is beautiful, the soil is fertile; the race is
deeply rooted in the earth. Everything is flowing and flowing in a particular direction, and the movement is
very slow, just like the Ganges. It is not terrifying and dangerous. So the Hindu god is bound to be a
Krishna, dancing and playing on his flute. This image comes from the environment and from the racial mind
and its experiences.
Everything subjective is bound to be translated, but whatever name and symbol we give to it is not
unreal. It is real to us. So one must defend one's own symbol, but one must not impose one's own symbol on
others. One must say, "Even if all the others are against this symbol, it is congenial to me; it comes to me
naturally and spontaneously. God comes to me in this way; I do not know how he comes to others."
So there have been many ways to indicate these things, thousands and thousands of ways. But when I
say it is subjective, psychic, I do not mean it is just a name. It is not just a name: to you it is a reality. It
comes to you in this way and it cannot come to you otherwise. If we do not confuse materiality with reality,
and do not confuse objectivity with reality, then everything will become clear. But if you confuse them, then
things become difficult to understand.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #7
Chapter title: Enlightenment: An Endless Beginning
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF07
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Meditation is going inward. And the journey is endless, endless in the sense that the door opens and
goes on opening until the door itself becomes the universe. Meditation flowers, and it goes on flowering
until the flowering itself becomes the cosmos. The journey is endless: it begins, but it never ends.
There are no degrees of enlightenment. Once it is, it is there. It is just like jumping into an ocean of
feeling. You jump, you become one with it, like a drop dropping into the ocean becomes one with it. But
that doesn't mean that you have known the whole ocean.
The moment is total: the moment of dropping the ego - the moment of ego elimination, the moment of
egolessness - is total; it is complete. As far as you are concerned, it is perfect. But as far as the ocean is
concerned, as far as the divine is concerned, it is just a beginning, and there will be no end to it.
One thing to remember: ignorance has no beginning, but it has an end. You cannot know from what
point your ignorance begins; you always find it there; you are always in the midst of it. You never know the
beginning: there is no beginning.
Ignorance has no beginning, but it ends. Enlightenment has a beginning, but it never ends. And both of
these become one; they both are one. The beginning of enlightenment and the end of ignorance is a single
point. It is one point, a dangerous point with two faces: one face looking toward beginningless ignorance
and the other face looking at the beginning of endless enlightenment.
So you reach enlightenment, but yet you never reach it. You come to it, you drop into it, you become
one with it, but still a vast unknown remains. And that is the beauty of it; that is the mystery of it.
If everything was known in enlightenment, there would be no mystery. If everything became known, the
whole thing would become ugly; then there would be no mystery, everything would be dead. So
enlightenment is not "knowing" in this sense; it is not knowing as a suicide, it is knowing in the sense that it
is an opening into greater mysteries. "Knowing" then means that you have known the mystery, you have
become aware of the mystery. It is not that you have solved it: it is not that there is a mathematical formula
and now everything is known. Rather, the knowing of enlightenment means that you have come to a point
where the mystery has become ultimate. You have known that this is the ultimate mystery; you have known
it as a mystery, now it has become so mysterious that you cannot hope to solve it. Now you leave all hope.
But it is not despair, it is not hopelessness; it is just understanding the nature of the mystery. The
mystery is such that it is insoluble; the mystery is such that the very effort to solve it is absurd. The mystery
is such that to try to solve it through the intellect is meaningless: you have come to the limit of your
thinking. Now there is no thinking at all, and knowing begins.
But this is something very different from the knowing of science. The very word science means
knowing, but knowing in the sense of making a mystery demystified. Religious knowing means something
quite the contrary. It is not demystifying reality; rather, all that was known before becomes mysterious
again, even ordinary things about which you were confident, absolutely confident, that you knew. Now even
that gate is lost. Everything, in a way, becomes gateless - endless and unsolvable.
Knowing must be conceived of in this sense: it is participating in the exclusive mystery of existence; it
is saying yes to the mystery of life. The intellect - intellectual theory - is not there now; you are face to face
with it. It is an existential encounter - not through the mind, but through you, the totality of you. Now you
feel it from everywhere: from your body, from your eyes, from your hands, from your heart. The total
personality comes in contact with the total mystery.
This is just a beginning. And the end will never be, because the end would mean demystifying it. This is
the beginning of enlightenment. There is no end to it, but this is the beginning. You can conceive of the end
of ignorance, but there will be no end to this enlightened state of mind. Now you have jumped into a
bottomless abyss.
You can conceive of it from so many points of view. If one comes to this state of mind through
kundalini it will be an endless flowering. The one thousand petals of the sahasrar do not mean exactly one
thousand: the "one thousand" simply means the greatest number - it is symbolic. This means that the petals
of kundalini that are flowering are endless; they will go on opening and opening and opening. So you will
know the first opening, but the last will never be there because there is no limit to it. One can come to this
point through kundalini or one can come to it through other ways. Kundalini is not indispensable.
Those who reach enlightenment by other paths come to this same point, but the name will be different,
the symbol will be different. You will conceive of it differently because what is happening cannot be
described, and what is being described is not exactly what is happening. The description is an allegory, the
description is metaphoric. You can say it is like the flowering of a flower - though there is no flower at all.
But the feeling is just as if you are a flower that is beginning to open; the same feeling of opening is there.
But someone else can conceive of it differently. He can say, "It is like the opening of a door - a door that
leads to the infinite, a door which goes on opening." So one can use anything.
Tantra uses sex symbols. They can use them! They say, "It is a meeting, an endless union." When tantra
says, "It is just like maithuna, intercourse, what is meant is: a meeting of individuals with the infinite - but
endless, eternal. It can be conceived of in this way, but any conception is bound to be just a metaphor. It is
symbolic; it is bound to be. But when I say symbolic, I do not mean that a symbol has no meaning.
A symbol has meaning as far as your individuality is concerned because you conceived of it in this way.
You cannot conceive of it otherwise. A person who has not loved flowers, who has not known flowering,
who has passed by flowers but remained unacquainted with them, whose whole life is not concerned with
the realm of flowering, cannot feel it as a flowering. But if you feel it as a flowering, it means so many
things; it means that the symbol is natural to you, it corresponds somehow to your personality.
QUESTION: HOW DOES ONE FEEL AFTER THE SAHASRAR BEGINS TO OPEN?
After the sahasrar opens, there should be no feeling but inner silence and void. The feeling will be acute
in the beginning - when you feel it for the first time it will be very acute - but the more you know it, the less
acute it will become. The more you become one with it, the more it will lose its acuteness. Then a moment
comes - and it must come - when you will not feel it at all.
Feeling is always of the new. You feel that which is strange; you do not feel that which is not strange.
The strangeness is felt. If it becomes one with you and you have known it, you won't feel it, but that doesn't
mean that it will not be there. It will be there, even more than before. It will go on intensifying more and
more, but the feeling will be there less and less. And the moment will come when there will be no feeling;
there will be no sense of "otherness," so the feeling will not be there.
When the flowering of the sahasrar comes for the first time, it is something other than you. It is
unknown to you and you are unacquainted with it. It is something penetrating into you, or you are
penetrating into it. There is a gap between you and it, but the gap will gradually drop and you will become
one with it. Now you will not see it as something happening to you; you will become the happening. It will
go on expanding and you will become one with it.
Then you will not feel it. You will notice it, but will not feel it any more than you feel your breathing.
You feel your breathing only when something new, or wrong, has happened to you; otherwise you do not
feel it. You do not even feel your body unless some disease has crept in, unless you are ill. If you are
completely healthy, you do not feel it: you just have it. Really, your body is more alive when you are
healthy, but you do not feel it. You need not feel it; you are one with it.
QUESTION: WHAT HAPPENS TO RELIGIOUS VISIONS AND OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF DEEP
MEDITATION WHEN THE SAHASRAR OPENS?
All these things will drop. All pictures will drop - visions, everything, will drop, because these things
come only in the beginning. They are good signs, but they will drop away.
Before the opening of the sahasrar comes, many visions will come to you. These are not unreal; visions
are real, but with the opening of the sahasrar there will be no more visions. They will not come because this
"flowering experience" is the peak experience for the mind, it is the last experience for the mind; beyond
this, there will be no mind.
All that is happening beforehand is happening to the mind, but the moment you transcend mind, there
will be nothing. When the mind ceases, there will be neither mudras - outward expressions of psychic
transformation - nor visions; neither flowers nor serpents. There will be nothing at all, because beyond mind
there is no metaphor. Beyond mind the reality is so pure that there is no otherness; beyond mind the reality
is so total that it cannot be divided into the experiencer and the experienced.
Within the mind, everything is divided into two. You experience something - you may call it anything;
the name doesn't matter - but the division between the experiencer and the experienced, the knower and the
known, remains. The duality remains.
But these visions are good signs because they come only in the last stages. They come only when the
mind is to drop; they come only when the mind is to die. Particular mudras and visions are symbolic only,
symbolic in the sense that they indicate a coming death for the mind. When the mind dies there will be
nothing left. Or, everything will be left, but the divisions between the experiencer and the experienced will
not be there.
Mudras, visions - particularly visions - are experiences; they indicate certain stages. It is just like when
you say, "I was dreaming": we can take it for granted that you were asleep because dreaming indicates
sleep. And if you say, "I was daydreaming," then too you have dropped into a sort of sleep, because
dreaming is possible only when the mind, the conscious mind, has gone to sleep. So dreaming is indicative
of sleep: in the same way, mudras and visions are indicative of a particular state.
You may see visions of certain figures - you can identify them - and these figures, too, will be different
for different individuals. The figure of Shiva cannot come to a Christian mind. It cannot; there is no
possibility of it coming, but Jesus will come. That will be the last vision for a Christian mind, and it is very
valuable.
The last vision to be seen is of a central religious figure. This central figure will be the last vision. To a
Christian - and by Christian I mean one who has imbibed the language of Christianity, the symbols of
Christianity, one whose Christianity has entered his blood and bones from his very childhood - the figure of
Jesus on the cross will be the last. The knower, the experiencer, is still present, but at the very end there will
be the savior. It has been experienced; you cannot deny it. In the last moment of the mind - of the dying
mind - in the end, Jesus is there.
But to a Jaina, Jesus cannot come; to a Buddhist, Jesus cannot come. To a Buddhist, the figure of
Buddha will be there. The moment the sahasrar opens - with the opening of the sahasrar, Buddha will be
there. That is why Buddha is visualized on a flower. The flower was never placed there for the real Buddha
- under his feet the flower was not there - but the flower is placed there in statues because statues are not
real replicas of Gautam Buddha. They are the representation of the last vision to come into the mind. When
the mind drops into the eternal, Buddha is seen in this way: on the flower.
That is why Vishnu is placed on a flower. This flower is symbolic of the sahasrar, and Vishnu is the last
figure to be seen by a Hindu mind. Buddha, Vishnu, Jesus, are archetypes - what Jung calls archetypes.
The mind cannot conceive of anything abstractly, so the last effort of the mind to understand reality will
be through the symbol that has been most important to it. This peak experience of the mind is the mind's
last experience. The peak is always the end; the peak means the beginning of the end. The peak is the death,
so the opening of the sahasrar is the peak experience of the mind, the utmost that is possible with the mind,
the last that is possible with the mind. The last figure - the centralmost figure, the deepest one, the archetype
- will come. And it will be real. When I say "vision," many will deny that it is real. They will say that it
cannot be real because they think the word vision means illusionary, but it will be more real than reality
itself. Even if the whole world denies it, you will not be ready to accept the denial. You will say, "It is more
real to me than the whole world. A stone is not so real as the figure I have seen. It is real; it is perfectly
real." But the reality is subjective; the reality is colored by your mind. The experience is real but the
metaphor is given by you, so Christians will give one metaphor, Buddhists will give another, Hindus will
give another.
QUESTION: DOES TRANSCENDENCE COME WITH THE OPENING OF THE SAHASRAR?
No, transcendence is beyond the opening. But enlightenment has two connotations. One, the dying mind
- the ending mind, the mind that is going to die, the mind that has come to its peak, the mind that has come
to its last - conceives of the enlightenment. But a barrier has come and now the mind will not go beyond
this. The mind knows that it is ending, and with its ending the mind also knows the end of suffering; the
mind also knows the end of division; the mind also knows the end of the conflict that was there. All this
ends and the mind conceives of this as enlightenment, but it is still the mind that is conceiving of it. So this
is enlightenment conceived of by the mind.
When the mind has gone, then the real enlightenment comes. Now you have transcended, but you cannot
talk about it, you cannot say anything about it. That is why Lao Tzu says, "All that can be said cannot be
true. That which can be said will not be true, and the truth cannot be said. Only this much can be said, and
only this much is true."
And this is the last statement of the mind. This last statement has meaning, much meaning, but it is not
transcendental. The meaning is still a limitation of the mind; it is still mental, it is still conceived of through
the mind.
It is just like a flame, a flame in a lamp that is just going to die. Darkness is descending; the darkness is
coming, it is encircling nearer and nearer, and the flame is dying, the flame has come to the very end of its
existence. It says, "Now there is darkness," and it goes out of existence. Now the darkness has become full
and complete. But the last statement of the dying flame was known by the flame: the darkness was not
complete because the flame was there, the light was there. The darkness was conceived of by the light.
The light cannot really conceive of darkness; the light can only conceive of its own limitations, and
beyond that is darkness. The darkness was coming nearer and nearer and the light was going to die. It could
make its last statement, "I am going to die," and then the darkness was there. The darkness had been coming
and coming and coming; then the light made its last statement and dropped, and the darkness was complete.
So the statement was true, but not the truth.
There is a difference between true and truth. Truth is not a statement. The flame has gone and darkness
is there; this is truth. Now there is no statement: darkness is there. The statement was true, it was not untrue.
It was true: darkness was coming, enclosing, encircling. But still, the statement was made by light, and a
statement made by light about darkness can, at the most, be true - not truth.
When the mind is not there, the truth is known: when the mind is not, the truth is. And when the mind is,
you can be more true, but not truth; you can be less untrue, but not truth. The last statement that the mind
can make will be the least untrue, but that is all that can be said.
So between enlightenment as conceived of by the mind and enlightenment as such, there is much
difference, though it is not great. With a dying flame, there is not a single moment before it will die. Then
the flame dies, and simultaneously the darkness comes. There is not a single moment between the two
conditions, but the difference between them is great.
A dying mind will see visions in the end - visions of that which is coming. But these will be visions
conceived of through metaphors, pictures, archetypes. The mind cannot conceive of anything else; the mind
is trained in symbols, nothing else. There are religious symbols, artistic symbols, aesthetic, mathematical,
and scientific symbols, but these are all symbols. This is how the mind is trained.
A Christian will see Jesus, but a mathematician who is dying, a mind that has been trained
nonreligiously, may see nothing in the last moment but a mathematical formula. It may be a zero or it may
be a symbol of infinity, but it will not be Jesus, not be Buddha. And a Picasso dying may just see an abstract
flow of colors at the last moment. That will be the divine to him; he cannot conceive of the divine
otherwise.
So the end of the mind is the end of symbols, and at the end the mind will use the most significant
symbol that it knows. And after that, because there is no mind, there will be no symbols.
This is one reason why neither Buddha nor Mahavira talked about symbols. They said that there was no
use talking about them since they are all below enlightenment. Buddha would not talk about symbols, and
because of this he said that there were eleven questions that should not be asked to him. It was declared that
no one should ask these eleven questions; and they should not be asked because they could not be truly
answered: a metaphor would have to be used.
Buddha used to say, "I would not like to use any metaphor. But if you ask and I do not reply, you will
not feel good. It will not be gentlemanly; it will not be courteous. So, please, do not ask these questions. If I
reply to you it will be courteous, but untrue; so do not put me in this dilemma. As far as the truth is
concerned, I cannot use a symbol; I can use symbols only to approximate non-truth or approximate truth."
So there will be persons who will not use any metaphors, any visions. They will deny everything,
because truth conceived of by the mind cannot be enlightenment itself; these are two different things. The
conceptions of the mind will go when the mind goes, and then enlightenment will be there, but without
mind.
So the enlightened personality is without mind - a no-mind personality, living, but without any
conceptions; doing, but not thinking about it; loving, but without the concept of love; breathing, but without
any meditation. So living will be moment to moment and one with the total, but mind will not be there in
between. The mind divides, and now there will be no division.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #8
Chapter title: Initiation to a Master: The Ultimate Technique
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF08
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Man exists as if in sleep. Man is asleep. Whatever is known as waking is also a sleep. Initiation means
to be in intimate contact with one who is awakened. Unless you are in intimate contact with one who is
awakened it is impossible to come out of your sleep, because the mind is even capable of dreaming that it is
awake. The mind can dream that now there is no more sleep.
When I say that man is asleep, this has to be understood. We are dreaming continually, twenty-four
hours a day. In the night we are closed to the outward world, dreaming inside. In the day our senses are
opened toward the outside world, but the dream continues inside. Close your eyes for a moment, and you
can again be in a dream; it is a continuity inside. You are aware of the outside world, but that awareness is
not without the dreaming mind; it is imposed on the dreaming mind, but inside the dream continues. That is
why we are not seeing what is real even when we are supposedly awake. We impose our dreams on reality.
We never see what is; we always see our projections.
If I look at you and there is a dream in me, you will become an object of projection. I will project my
dream on you, and whatever I understand about you will be mixed with my dream, with my projection.
When I love you, you appear to me something quite different; when I do not love you, you appear to me
completely different. You are not the same because I have just used you as a screen and projected my
dreaming mind on you.
When I love you, the dream is different, so you appear different. When I do not love you, you are the
same - the screen is the same, but the projection is different; now I am using you as a screen for another
dream of mine. Again the dream can change. Again I can love you; then you will appear different to me. We
never see what is; we are always seeing our own dream projected on what is.
I am not the same to each one of you: each one projects onto me something else. I am one only as far as
I myself am concerned. And if I myself am dreaming, then even for me I am different each moment,
because for each moment my interpretation will differ. But if I am awakened, then I am the same. Buddha
said that the test of an enlightened one is that he is always the same, just like the sea water: anywhere,
everywhere, it is salty.
You have around yourself a filmy enclosure of projections, ideas, notions, conceptions, interpretations.
You are a projector going on and on, projecting things that are nowhere, only inside you, and the whole
becomes a screen; so you can never be aware, by yourself, that you are in a deep sleep.
There was a Sufi saint, Hijira. An angel appeared in his dream and told him that he should save as much
water as possible from the well, because the following morning all the water in the world was going to be
poisoned by the devil and everyone who would drink it would become mad.
So the whole night the fakir saved as much water as possible. And the phenomenon really happened:
everyone became mad the next morning. But no one knew the whole city had become mad. Only the fakir
was not mad, but the whole city talked as if he had gone mad. He knew what had happened, but no one
believed him, so he went on drinking his water and remained alone.
But he could not continue that way; the whole city was living in an altogether different world. No one
listened to him, and finally there was a rumor that he would be caught and sent to prison. They said that he
was mad.
One morning they came to get hold of him. Either he would be treated as if he was ill, or he would have
to go to prison, but he could not be allowed freedom: he had become absolutely mad. What he said could
not be understood; he spoke a different language.
The fakir was at a loss to understand. He tried to help the others to remember their past, but they had
forgotten everything. They did not know anything of the past, anything about what existed before that
maddening morning. They could not understand; the fakir had become incomprehensible to them.
They surrounded his house and caught hold of him. Then the fakir said, "Give me one moment more. I
shall treat myself." He ran to the common well, drank the water, and became all right. Now the whole city
was happy: the fakir was okay now; now he was not mad. Really, he had gone mad, but now he was part
and parcel of a common world.
If everyone else is asleep, you will never even be aware that you are asleep. If everyone is mad and you
are mad, you will never be aware of it.
By initiation it is meant that you have surrendered to someone who is awakened. You say, "I do not
understand, I cannot understand. I am part of the world that is mad and asleep. I am dreaming all the time."
This feeling can come even from a sleepy person, because the sleep is not always deep. It wavers, becoming
very deep at times and then coming up and becoming very shallow. Just like ordinary sleep is a fluctuation
of so many levels, so many planes, the metaphysical sleep that I am talking about also fluctuates.
Sometimes you are just on the border line, very near to the Buddha; then you can understand something of
what Buddha is talking about, what he is saying. It will never be exactly what was said, but at least you have
had a glimpse of the truth.
So a person who is on the border of metaphysical sleep will want to be initiated. He can hear something,
he can understand something, he sees something. Everything is as if in a mist, but still, he feels something;
so he can approach a person who is awakened and surrender himself. This much can be done by a sleepy
person. This surrendering means he understands that something quite different from his sleep is happening.
Somewhere he feels it. He cannot know it correctly, but he feels it.
Whenever a buddha passes, those who are on the border line of sleep can recognize that there is
something different about this man. He behaves differently, he speaks differently, he lives differently, he
walks differently; something has happened to him. Those who are on the border line can feel it; but they are
asleep, and this borderline awareness is not permanent. They may fall back into sleep at any moment.
So before they fall into a deeper unconsciousness, they can surrender to the awakened one. This is
initiation from the side of the initiated. He says, "I cannot do anything myself. I am helpless, and I know
that if I do not surrender this moment, I may again go into deep sleep. Then it will be impossible to
surrender." So there are moments that cannot be lost, and one who loses those moments may not be able to
get them again for centuries, for lifetimes, because it is not in one's hands when one will come again to the
border line. It happens for so many reasons that are beyond your control.
On the part of the initiated, initiation is a total letting go: a complete trust, a complete surrender. It can
never be partial. If you surrender partially, you are not surrendering, you are deceiving yourself. There can
be no partial surrender, because in partial surrender you are withholding something, and that withholding
may push you again into a deep sleep. That nonsurrendering part will prove fatal; any moment you may
again be in deep sleep.
Surrender is always total. That is why trust was required and always will be required in initiation. Trust
is required as a total condition, as a total requirement. And the moment you surrender totally, things begin
to change; now you cannot go back to your dream life. This surrendering shatters the whole projection, the
whole projecting mind, because this projecting mind is tethered to the ego, it cannot live without the ego.
The ego is the main center of it, the base. If you surrender, you have surrendered the very base. You have
given up completely.
Initiation is just a person who is asleep asking for help to be awakened. He surrenders to one who is
awake. It is very simple; the thing is not very complex. When you go to a Buddha, to a Jesus, or to a
Mohammed and surrender yourself, what you are surrendering is your sleep, your dreams. You cannot
surrender anything more, because you are nothing more. You surrender this; your sleep, your dreaming,
your whole nonsense of the past you surrender.
So from the initiated it is a surrendering of the past, and from the one who initiates you it is a
responsibility for the future. He becomes responsible - and only he can be responsible; you can never be
responsible. How can one who is asleep be responsible? Responsibility comes with awakening.
This is really a fundamental law of life: one who is asleep is not responsible even for himself, and one
who is awakened is responsible even for others. If you come to him and surrender to him, then he becomes
particularly responsible for you. So Krishna could say to Arjuna, "Leave everything. Come to me; surrender
at my feet," and Jesus could say, "I am the truth, I am the door, I am the gate. Come to me, pass through me.
I will be the witness on the last day of your judgment. I will answer for you."
This is all analogical. Every day is the day of judgment, and every moment is the moment of judgment.
There is not going to be any last day. These are just the terms that could be understood by the people to
whom Jesus was speaking. He was saying, "I will be responsible for you, and I will answer for you when
the divine asks. I will be there as a witness. Surrender to me; I will be your witness."
This is a great responsibility. No one who is asleep can take it because even to be responsible for
yourself becomes difficult in sleep. You can be responsible for others only when you no longer need to be
responsible for yourself, when you are unburdened completely, when you are no more. So only one who is
no more can initiate you; otherwise, no one can initiate you. No particular individual can initiate anyone,
and if that happens - and it happens so many times, it is happening every day; those who are themselves
asleep initiate others who are asleep, the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch.
No one who is asleep can initiate anyone, but the ego wants to initiate. This egoistic attitude has proved
fatal and very dangerous. The whole initiation, the whole mystery of it, the whole beauty of it, became ugly
because of those who were not entitled to initiate. Only one who has no ego inside, who has no sleep inside,
who has no dream inside, can initiate; otherwise, initiation is the greatest sin.
In the old days, to take initiation was not easy; it was the most difficult thing. One had to wait for years
to be initiated; even for his whole life one might wait. This waiting was a testing ground, it was a discipline.
For example, Sufis would only initiate you when you had waited for a particular period. You had to
wait, without questioning, for the moment when the teacher himself would say that it was time. The teacher
might be a shoemaker. If you wanted to be initiated, you would have to help him for years in shoemaking.
And not even the relevance of the shoemaking could be questioned. So for five years you would just be
waiting, helping the teacher in shoemaking. He would never talk of prayer or meditation, he would never
talk of anything except shoemaking. You have waited for five years... but this is a meditation. And it is no
ordinary meditation; you would be cleansed through it.
This simple waiting, this unquestioned waiting, would make the ground ready for complete surrender.
Only after a long waiting could initiation happen, but then surrender was easy and the master could take
responsibility for the disciple.
Now the whole thing has become different. No one is ready to wait. We have become so time conscious
that we cannot wait for a single moment. And because of this time consciousness, initiation has become
impossible. You cannot be initiated. You run past Buddha and you ask him, "Will you initiate me?" You are
running; you meet Buddha on the street while running. Even during this utterance of four or five words you
have been running.
This whole running of the modern mind is because of the fear of death. For the first time man is so
fearful of death, because for the first time man has become absolutely unaware of the deathless. We are only
conscious of the body that is going to die; we are not conscious of the inner consciousness that is deathless.
In ancient days there were people who were conscious of the deathless, and because of their
consciousness, their deathlessness, they created an atmosphere in which there was no hurry. Then initiation
was easy. Then waiting was easy; then surrender was easy. Then for the master to assume responsibility for
the disciple was easy. These things have all become difficult now, but still, there is no alternative: initiation
is needed.
If you are in a hurry, I will give initiation to you in your running state, because otherwise there will be
no initiation. I cannot ask you to wait as a precondition. I must initiate you first and then prolong your
waiting in so many ways; through so many devices, I will persuade you to wait. If I tell you first, "Wait five
years and then I will initiate you," you cannot wait, but if I initiate you this very moment then I will be able
to create devices for your waiting.
So let it be like this; it makes no difference, the process will be the same. Because you cannot wait, I
change; I will allow you to wait afterward. I will create so many devices, so many techniques just to make
you wait. Because you cannot wait unoccupied, I will create techniques for you, I will give you something
to play with. You can play with these techniques; it will become a waiting. Then you will be ready for a
second initiation, which would have been the first in the old days. The first initiation is a formal one; the
second one will be informal, it will be like a happening. You will not ask me, I will not give you. It will
happen -- in the innermost being it will happen. And you will know it when it happens.
Surrender from the disciple, responsibility from the master: that is the bridge. And whenever you are
able to surrender, the master will come. The master is there. Masters have always been in existence. The
world has never lacked masters, it has always lacked disciples. But no master can begin anything unless
someone surrenders. So whenever you have a moment to surrender, do not lose it. Even if you do not find
anyone to whom to surrender, then just surrender to existence. But whenever there is a moment to surrender,
do not lose it, because then you are on the border line, you are in between sleep and waking. Just surrender!
If you can find someone to whom to surrender that is good, but if you cannot find anyone, just surrender
to the universe, and the master will appear, he will come. He comes whenever there is surrender. You
become vacant, you become empty, and the spiritual force rushes toward you and fills you.
So always remember that whenever you feel like surrendering, do not lose the moment. It may not come
again or it may come only after centuries and lives have been unnecessarily wasted. Whenever the moment
comes, just surrender.
Surrender to the divine, to anything -- even to a tree -- because the real thing is not to whom you
surrender: the real thing is surrendering. Surrender to a tree, and the tree will become a master to you.
Surrender to a stone, and the stone will become a god. The real thing is surrendering. And whenever there is
surrendering, one always appears who becomes responsible for you. This is what is meant by initiation.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #9
Chapter title: Sannyas: Dying to the Past
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF09
Audio: No
Video: No
To me, sannyas is not something very serious. Life itself is not very serious, and one who is serious is
always dead. Life is just an overflowing energy without any purpose, so to me, sannyas is to lead life
purposelessly. Live life as a play and not as a work. If you can take this whole life just as a play, you are a
sannyasin; then you have renounced. Renunciation is not leaving the world, but changing the attitude.
That is why I can initiate anyone into sannyas. To me, initiation itself is a play. And I will not ask for
any qualifications -- whether you are qualified or not -- because qualifications are asked when something
serious is done. Just by existing everyone is qualified enough to play, and even if he is unqualified to be a
sannyasin it makes no difference, because the whole thing is just a play.
So I will not ask for any qualifications. And my sannyas does not involve any obligation either. The
moment you are a sannyasin, or a sannyasini, you are totally at freedom. It means that you have taken a
decision, and this is the last decision: to live in indecision, to live in freedom.
The moment you are initiated into sannyas, you are initiated into an uncharted, unplanned future. Now
you are not tethered by the past; you are free to live. So a sannyasin, to me, is a person who decides to live
to the utmost, to the optimum, to the maximum. Moment to moment you live; moment to moment you act.
Each moment is complete in itself. You do not decide how to act; the moment comes to you, and you act.
There is no predetermination; there is no preplan.
Sannyas means living moment to moment, with no commitments to the past. If I give you a mala and if I
give you new clothes, this is only for your remembrance: to remind you that now you do not have to make
any decisions, now you are no longer the old. When this awareness becomes so deep that you do not need to
remember it, then throw the robe, then throw the mala. But not until the awareness becomes so deep that
now, even in sleep, you know that you are a sannyasin. So a new name, a new robe, a mala -- these are just
devices to help you; to help you toward freedom, to help you toward total being, to help you toward total
action.
Sannyas means that you have come to realize that you are a seed, a potentiality. Now you have taken the
decision to grow; and this is the last decision. To decide to grow is a great renunciation -- renunciation of
the security of the seed, renunciation of the "wholeness" of the seed. But this security is at a very great cost.
The seed is dead; it is only potentially living. Unless it becomes a tree, unless it grows, it is dead -- only
potentially living. And as far as I know, human beings, unless they decide to grow, unless they take a jump
into the unknown, are like seeds: dead, closed.
To be a sannyasin is to take a decision to grow, to take a decision to move into the unknown, to take a
decision to live in indecision. It is a jump into the unknown. It is not a religion and it is not bound to any
religion; it is religiousness itself.
QUESTION: AT FIRST SIGHT, SANNYAS APPEARS TO BE SOMETHING THAT LIMITS ONE'S
ACTIVITIES. WHY DOES ONE HAVE TO CHANGE ONE'S CLOTHES TO RED? WHY SHOULD ONE HAVE
TO CHANGE HIS APPEARANCE, SINCE SANNYAS IS SOMETHING THAT IS WITHIN RATHER THAN
WITHOUT?
Sannyas is not negative. The very word denotes negativity, but it is not a pure negativity. It means to
leave something, but it is only leaving something because you have gained something else. Something has
to be left. It is not that leaving anything is meaningful in itself, but that it creates a space for something new
to come in. Negativity is just creating a space -- and if you are to grow, you need space.
As we are, we have no space within; we are so filled with unnecessary things and thoughts. Sannyas, in
its negative aspect, means just creating a space -- throwing aside the trivial, the useless, the meaningless, so
you can grow inside.
Growth is decay, but growth is positive also. And I say emphatically that sannyas is positive. Negativity
is just the clearing: it is just clearing the ground for the growth to come in. Negativity is only something
without, something outside, and the growth is inside. The positivity is at the center, and the negativity is at
the periphery.
And, really, nothing can exist that is simply negative or simply positive. That is impossible, because
these are two polarities. Existence exists in between: these are the two banks between which existence
flows. No river can exist with one bank, and neither can existence. When emphasis is given to only one side
or to one bank or to one pole, it becomes fallacious. But when you accept the total, then there is no
emphasis on anything. You just accept the two polarities, and then you grow within; and you use both of
them as a dialectic within which to move.
Sannyas is understood as being negative. Its connotation has become negative because you have to
begin with the negative, you have to begin from the periphery. This must be understood because sannyas is
inner: something is to grow on the inside, so why must you begin from the outside? When you have to grow
inside, why not begin from the inside?
But you cannot begin from the inside, because as you are you are on the periphery, on the outside. You
have to begin from the point where you are; you cannot begin from somewhere where you are not.
For example, health is something inner; it grows. But you are diseased and ill, so we have to begin with
your disease, not with your health; we have to negate the disease. By negating disease we are only creating
space for the health to grow in; but the beginning is negative.
Medical science has no definition of health. They cannot have it; all that they can have is a definition of
what disease is and a science of how to negate it. Health remains indefinable, and disease is negatively
defined because you have to begin with disease; you cannot begin with health. When there is health you
need not begin at all.
So if you have the inner space you do not need sannyas. Sannyas is to negate the samsara, the world --
the disease. When I say samsara, I do not mean that the world is diseased; rather, I mean the world that you
have created around you. Everyone is living in a world of his own making.
I do not deny the world that exists outside. It cannot be denied; it is there. But you have a fantasy world,
a dream world around you, and that dream world has become you. The periphery has become your center
and you have forgotten the center completely. So when one begins, one has to deny this dreaming world,
since this denial is the beginning. This becomes negative, and sannyas then appears to be negative. We give
it a negative connotation because it means to negate this dream world. So sannyas is really medicinal: it is
just a medicine to deny the disease. When the disease is negated, the possibility arises for the inner to grow.
So sannyas is just to create a situation.
You must understand clearly that when I say "to deny the world," I do not mean the world that exists,
but rather the world that every individual creates around him. Because of this dream world we cannot know
the world that really exists; this constant dreaming becomes a barrier. It becomes a double barrier: you
cannot go inside -- there is something existential there; you cannot go outside -- there is something
existential there also. You are stuck to your dreaming mind and you cannot proceed either way.
A miracle happens when this dreaming barrier is annihilated. There is no longer any disease. You begin
to exist in two worlds simultaneously, only now they are no longer two because the barrier was the thing
that divided them. You become existential inside, and you become existential outside. So this is why a
negative approach is chosen.
How does this -- the taking of sannyas -- affect your behavior? There are two possibilities: one is to
change your behavior consciously, and the other is to change your consciousness consciously. Behavior is
nothing but consciousness expressed, but if you start with behavior, you may continue with the old
consciousness. You can adjust any new behavior to the old consciousness, and then behavior changes
outwardly, but nothing really changes.
For example, your consciousness can continue to be violent, but you can be nonviolent in your behavior.
You can be nonviolent in your behavior, but your consciousness continues to be the same as it was when
your behavior was violent. Now you begin to suppress your consciousness. You have to suppress it because
you have to pose a behavior that is not in the consciousness. The consciousness has to be suppressed, and
when you suppress consciousness, you create the unconscious in yourself.
When you begin to behave in ways that your consciousness is not ready to behave in, then you are
denying part of your consciousness, putting it off. This part becomes your unconscious, and it becomes
more powerful than your consciousness because you have to continue denying your behavior. You become
false; a false personality is created. This false personality exists only up to the point where the unconscious
exists. So if you try to change your behavior directly, you will become less and less conscious and more and
more unconscious.
A person who has become completely behavior oriented will just be automatic. Only the very small
consciousness that is needed to work automatically will be there; otherwise, the whole mind will become
unconscious. And this unconscious mind is the disease of your consciousness.
You can begin by changing your behavior as more or less "ethical" persons ordinarily do. The so-called
religions begin with changing your behavior. But I do not begin with changing your behavior; I begin with
changing your consciousness, because really, consciousness is the behavior. That is the behavior. This
outward behavior is meaningless. So begin with changing your consciousness.
That is why my emphasis is on meditation and not on behavior. Meditation changes your consciousness.
First, it destroys the barrier between your conscious and unconscious. You become more fluid, you begin to
move in a less fixed way; you become one with your consciousness. So meditation first has to destroy the
barrier inside; and the destruction of the barrier means the expansion of your consciousness.
You must become more conscious. So the first thing is to be more conscious in whatsoever you are
doing. I am not interested in the content of your doing, but with the consciousness of your doing. Be more
conscious in doing it.
For example, if you are violent, the so-called moralists and religious people will say, "Be nonviolent,
cultivate nonviolence." I will not say this. I will say: Be violent, but now be consciously violent. Do not
change your behavior. Be conscious about your violence and you will find that you cannot be consciously
violent, because the more you become conscious, the less is the possibility of being violent.
Violence has a built-in process; it can exist only when you are not aware. Your very awareness changes
the whole thing: you cannot be violent if you are aware. Unawareness is a must for violence to exist, or for
anger or for sex, or for anything that one wants to change in the behavior.
The greater the built-in mechanism, the more you are unaware of what you are doing and the more you
can do things that are evil. When I say a thing is evil, I do not mean the content of it. I say a thing is evil
when it creates unconsciousness unnecessarily: that is my definition. I do not say violence is bad because
you will kill someone. I say violence is bad because you cannot be violent without unconsciousness. That
unconsciousness is the evil, because that unconsciousness is the background, the basis, of all ignorance, of
all dreams, of all illusions, of all the nonsense that we can create. Evil is nothing more than an unconscious
mind.
So for one who is a sannyasin -- for one who has taken sannyas -- I emphasize that you do whatever you
are doing. Do not change your behavior, change your consciousness. Do whatever you are doing
consciously. Be angry -- anger is no cause for worry -- but be angry consciously. This consciousness
becomes transformation and your whole behavior is changed; you cannot remain the same. And now this
change is not just a change in behavior; it becomes a change of your being also, not only of your doing.
You do not have to create a false personality, a mask. You can be completely at ease with yourself. But
this "being at ease with yourself" can come only when you have become totally conscious. Tension is there
because you are living with masks: you are violent and you have to be nonviolent; you are angry and you
have to be nonangry; you are sexual and you have to be nonsexual. This creates tensions, this creates
anxieties. This is the anguish, the whole anguish; you have to be something which you are not, so you are
bound to be in a deep anxiety constantly. This "being something which you are not" is withering and
dissipating your whole life energy in tensions, in conflicts. Really, conflict is never with someone else; it is
always with yourself.
So I emphasize being at ease with yourself. And you can only be at ease when your behavior is
conscious. So be conscious; meditate and be conscious in your behavior. Then things will begin to change
without your knowing it. You will be different because of your different consciousness.
You ask why I emphasize the changing of dress, the changing of name -- these outward things. They are
so outward, the most outward things.
As I know man to be, as man exists, he is clothes. As man is, clothes are very significant. You give a
military uniform to a person and his very face changes, his very attitude; something different arises within
him. Look at a policeman when he is in civilian dress and when he is in his uniform; he is not the same man
at all. Why? Outward things create a change inside because you are nothing but the outside. There is no
such thing as "inside" right now.
Gurdjieff used to say a very meaningful thing: that as you are now, you have no soul. He was both right
and wrong. You have a soul, but you do not know about it. You are the outside, and so clothes are very
meaningful. Because of clothes a person becomes beautiful and because of clothes a person becomes ugly.
Because of clothes he becomes respected; because of clothes he is not respected. A judge has to wear
certain clothes -- a supreme court justice has to use a particular robe -- and no one asks why. With that robe
he is a supreme court justice; without that robe he is no one.
This is how man is. When I look at a man he is more his clothes than his mind. And this is as it should
be, because we belong to the body, we are identified with the body. This identification with the body
becomes an identification with the clothes.
If I ask a man to wear a woman's dress and walk down the street, do you think that this is just going to
be a change of clothes? It is not! Firstly, he will not be ready to do it. No man will be ready to do it. Why
this unreadiness, why this resistance? It is only a change of clothes, and clothes are neither male nor female.
How can clothes be male or female? But in fact, clothes are not simply clothes; psychologically they have
become identified as either male or female. What type of minds do we have that even clothes have gender?
If you move in female dress, you will feel feminine. Your gestures will be different, your walking will
be different, your eyes will be different; your very awareness of what is happening on the street will be
different. You will be aware of things that you have never been aware of before even though you may have
walked down the same street your whole life. Because everything about you will be different, others will
look at you differently -- and you will react differently to their looking. You won't be the same person.
So when I say that clothes are our outside, they only appear to be outside; they have gone deeply
inward, they have penetrated inside. So I emphasize a change of clothes. A readiness to change the clothes
is a readiness to throw the old mind, which was associated with the clothes. A readiness to make this change
is a readiness to change your identity.
When someone resists the change in clothes I know why he is resisting. He goes on asking, "Why do
you emphasize the clothes?" But I am not emphasizing them; he is emphasizing them. He keeps saying,
"Why must you emphasize the clothes? They are just the outside. What is the difference if I continue
wearing my old things?"
I am not emphasizing the clothes at all; he is emphasizing them. And he is not even aware that he is
resisting. Then I ask him, "Why are you resisting?" If someone comes to me and is not at all resistant, I may
not even ask him to change his clothes. If I ask him to change his clothes and he says "Okay," then I may
not tell him to change his clothes, because he is not identified with clothes really.
So I may tell you to change your clothes: to use a particular type of robe, a particular color. The moment
you change your clothes, you change; sometimes you are this color, sometimes that color. If I just ask you to
change your type of clothes without specifying any particular color, that may not be a change at all because
you have changed your type of clothing so continuously. So the change can happen only with an
unchanging robe; then there is really a change. If I give you an unchanging robe, then the change in you can
happen.
Why do we change clothes really? It is a deep thing, not just an outward one. Why are we bored with
one style, one color, one type of cloth? Why are we bored? The mind is always asking for something new,
something different. We go on asking how to stop our mind from running continually and yet we go on
always feeding it the new. We go on asking how to stop our constant, wavering mind -- how to bring it to a
standstill, how to be silent -- but we go on feeding it in subtle ways. We go on changing clothes, we go on
changing things -- we go on changing everything. We are bored with anything that remains constant, but the
more the mind is fed changes, the more the mind is fed.
With a nonchanging robe, for the first time your mind has to fight daily, every moment, with the identity
that it wants to change. And if you are at ease with a nonchanging robe, soon you will be at ease with a
nonchanging world. This is just a beginning. The more you are at ease with something nonchanging, the
more the mind will be able to stop.
So the emphasis is to become more and more at ease with the nonchanging; only then can you come to
the eternal. With a mind that is asking for constant change, how can you come to the eternal? You have to
begin with the nonchanging.
Somewhere, with this nonchanging of your clothes, you will become unaware of clothes. When you use
the same robe and the same color, you will soon become unaware of clothing. Moving on the streets you
will become unaware of the clothing shops; your consciousness of these things will just drop, because it is
the mind that notices them. And if your mind is again looking at clothes and at the shops, be aware of it.
What is your mind asking for?
We feel this constant changing of clothes to be something beautiful, but in a nonchanging robe you can
attain a graceful beauty that can never be attained with a changing robe. With a changing robe you are
hiding ugliness, nothing else, but with a nonchanging robe everything about you as you are is revealed.
When you change your clothes, others become aware of your clothes. That is why everyone always asks
about your new clothes. But when you are constantly in one robe, no one asks about your clothes; the asking
drops. Then one looks at you, not at your clothes.
This is a fact that every woman knows. If she wears ornaments and nice clothes, you become aware of
the ornaments and clothes and forget the woman. This is hiding. Clothes are not expressers, but hiders. And
the more precious the ornament the more deeply you can hide, because others become more attentive to the
ornament.
With a diamond on my finger, my finger is hidden. The diamond has so much appeal and the luster of it
somehow becomes associated with my finger, but it is not part of the finger at all. A bare or naked finger is
exposed as it is. If it is beautiful, then it is beautiful; if it is ugly, then it is ugly.
A person who is not hiding his ugliness has a beauty of his own. A person who is not hiding anything
has a certain grace, and this grace comes only when you are totally naked. When you are at ease a certain
grace comes, and even an ugly face becomes beautiful. But with hiding, even a beautiful face becomes ugly.
To me, beauty is to be as you really are: to be as you are and totally relaxed in it. If you are ugly, you are
ugly and at ease with it; then a subtle beauty begins to come to your face. With relaxation and ease, a subtle
flow begins to manifest. It is not coming from the diamond; now it is coming from your inner self.
One who is not at ease with himself cannot be at ease with anyone else. And one who does not love
himself, who is hiding himself, cannot be loved by anyone else. He is deceiving others, and others are
deceiving him. Then we never really meet; only faces are meeting -- far-off faces. I have come with a
made-up face, and you have also come with a made-up face. I am hiding myself and you are hiding yourself.
Two faces are meeting in this room, but nowhere is there an encounter, nowhere is there an authentic
meeting and communion between these faces.
But why do you change your faces? You change them because if you do not, you will not pay enough
attention to the face that you are showing and the real may be exposed. That is why a beloved is someone
altogether different when she becomes your wife. She is not the same now because she cannot put on a new
face. She is so much with you that the real is bound to show up. In the morning she will be just as she is --
and now she is ugly. On the beach you were just fascinated, but in the morning, in bed, after the whole
night, she will be just as she is. And once you have known your wife in the morning when she is just getting
out of bed, you have known her ugly face. But her face is not ugly because she is ugly; it is ugly because
now nothing is hidden. You see everything, she sees everything.
So when I say that a sannyasin should remain in one robe, this means to be free from the changing
clothes and the changing identities; to remain as you are and to be expressive as you are -- to just accept
yourself. The moment you accept yourself, others will begin to accept you -- but that is irrelevant. Whether
they accept you or not, it is irrelevant. If you think about people accepting you, then you will create another
false face. There is nothing to think about: it just happens.
So I change the name, I change the clothes, just to help a person who is living on the periphery.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #10
Chapter title: Total Desire: The Path to Desirelessness
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF10
Audio: No
Video: No
Death is more important than life. Life is just the trivial, just the superficial; death is deeper. Through
death you grow to the real life, and through life you only reach death and nothing else.
Whatever we say and mean by life is just a journey toward death. If you can understand that your whole
life is just a journey and nothing else, then you are less interested in life and more interested in death. And
once someone becomes more interested in death, he can go deep into the very depths of life; otherwise, he is
just going to remain on the surface.
But we are not interested in death at all: rather, we escape the facts, we are continuously escaping the
facts. Death is there, and every moment we are dying. Death is not something far away, it is here and now:
we are dying. But while we are dying we go on being concerned about life. This concern with life, this over
concern with life, is just an escape, just a fear. Death is there, deep inside -- growing.
Change the emphasis, turn your attention around. If you become concerned with death, your life comes
to be revealed to you for the first time, because the moment you become at ease with death you have gained
a life that cannot die. The moment you have known death, you have known that life which is eternal.
Death is the door from the superficial life, the so-called life, the trivial. There is a door. If you pass
through the door you reach another life -- deeper, eternal, without death, deathless. So from so-called life,
which is really nothing but dying, one has to pass through the door of death; only then does one achieve a
life that is really existential and active -- without death in it.
But one should pass this door very consciously. We have been dying so many times, but whenever
someone dies he becomes unconscious; you are so afraid of death that the moment death comes to you, you
become unconscious. You pass through the door in an unconscious state of mind. Then you are born again,
and the whole nonsense begins again, and again you are not concerned with death.
One who is concerned with death rather than with life begins to pass the door consciously. This is what
is meant by meditation: to pass the door of death consciously. To die consciously is meditation. But you
cannot wait for death; you need not, because death is always there: it is a door that exists inside you. It is
not something that is going to happen in the future, it is not something outside of you that you have to reach,
it is inside you, a door.
The moment you accept the fact of death and begin to feel it, to live it, to be aware of it, you begin to
drop through the inner door. The door opens, and through the door of death you begin to have glimpses of
an eternal life. Only through death can one have glimpses of eternal life; there is no other way. So really, all
that is known as meditation is just a voluntary death, just a deepening inside, a drowning inside, a sinking
inside; just a going away from the surface toward the depths.
Of course, the depths are dark. The moment you leave the surface you will feel you are dying, because
you have identified the surface of life with yourself. It is not that the surface waves are just surface waves;
you have become identified with them, you are the surface. So when you leave the surface, it is not only
that you leave the surface; you leave yourself, your identity -- the past, the mind, the memory. All that you
were, you have to leave; that is why meditation appears to be a death. You are dying, and only if you are
ready to die this voluntary death -- to go deep beyond yourself, to leave the self and transcend the surface --
do you come to the reality, which is eternal.
So for one who is ready to die, this very readiness becomes the transcendence; this very readiness is the
religiousness. When we say someone is worldly, it means he is more concerned with life than with death.
Rather, that he is absolutely concerned with life and not at all concerned with death. A worldly person is
one to whom death comes in the end; and when it comes, he is unconscious.
A religious man is one who is dying every moment. Death is not in the end; it is the very process of life.
A religious man is one who is more concerned with death than with life, because he feels that whatever is
known as life is going to be taken away. It is being taken away; every moment you are losing it. Life is just
like sand in an hourglass: every moment the sand is being lost, and you cannot do anything about it. The
process is natural; nothing can be done, it is irreversible.
Time is something which cannot be retained, which cannot be prevented, which cannot be reversed. It is
one-dimensional: there is no going back. And ultimately the very process of time is death, because you are
losing time, you are dying. One day all the sand is lost and you are empty -- just an empty self with no time
left. So you die.
Be more concerned with death -- and time. It is right here and now, by the corner -- present every
moment. Once you begin to look for it, you become aware of it. It is here, you were just overlooking the
fact; not even overlooking the fact, escaping it. So enter into death, jump into it. This is the arduousness of
meditation, this is the austerity of it: one has to jump into death.
To go on loving life is a deep lust, and to be ready to die somehow looks unnatural. Of course, death is
one of the most natural things, but it looks unnatural to be ready to die.
This is how the paradox, how the dialectics of existence works: if you are ready to die, this very
readiness makes you undying; but if you are not ready to die, this very unreadiness, this overattachment and
lust for living, makes you a dying phenomenon.
When we assume any attitude, we always reach the opposite. This is the deep dialectics of existence.
The expected never comes; the longed-for is never achieved; the desire is never fulfilled. The more you
desire it, the more you lose it. Whatever the dimension may be, it makes no difference; the law remains the
same. If you ask too much of anything, by the very asking you lose it.
If someone asks for love he will not get love, because the very asking makes him unlovely, ugly; the
very fact of asking becomes the barrier. No one can love you if you are asking for love. No one can love
you. You can be loved only when there is no asking; the very fact of not asking makes you beautiful, makes
you relaxed.
It is just like when you close your fist and you lose the air that was in the open fist. In an open fist all the
air is there, but the moment you close your fist, in the very closing you are losing the air. You may think
that when you have closed your fist you will have possessed the air, but the moment you try to possess it
you lose it. With an open fist all the air is there and you are the master. With a closed fist you are the loser:
you have lost everything; you have no air in your hand at all.
And the more closed the fist, the less is the possibility of air being there. But this is how the mind works,
this is the absurdity of the mind; if you feel that the air is not there, you close your fist even more. Logic
says, "Close it better; you have lost all the air. You have lost it because you did not close your fist so well.
You have not really closed your fist as you should; somewhere you are at fault. You have closed your fist
wrong; that is why air has escaped. So close it more, close it more," and in the very closing you are losing.
But this is how it happens.
If I love someone, I become possessive; I begin to close in. The more I close in, the more love is lost.
The mind says, "Arrange to be even closer," and it makes more arrangements, but somewhere there is a
leakage. That is why love is being lost. The more I close in, the more I lose. Only with an open hand can
love be possessed; only with an open hand, only with a nonclosing mind, can love become a flowering. And
this happens with everything.
If you love life too much, you become closed; you become like a dead person even while you are alive.
So a person who is filled with lust for life is a dead person; he is already dead, just a corpse. The more he
feels to be just a corpse, the more he yearns to be alive -- but he does not know the dialectics. The very
longing is poisonous. A person who does not long for life at all -- a person like Buddha, with no lust for life
-- lives ardently. He flowers into aliveness perfectly, totally.
The day Buddha died someone said to him, "Now you are dying. We will be missing you so much, for
ages and ages, for lives and lives."
Buddha said, "But I died a long time ago. For forty years I have not been aware that I am alive. The day
I achieved knowing, enlightenment, I died."
But he was so alive! And he was really alive only after he "died." The day he achieved inner
enlightenment he died outwardly, but then he became very alive. Then he was so relaxed and so
spontaneous. Then he was without fear -- without fear of death.
Fear of death is the only fear. It may take any shape, but that is the basic fear. Once you are ready --
once you have died -- there is no fear. And only in a nonfearing existence can life come to its total
flowering.
Even then, death comes; Buddha dies. But death happens only to us, not to him, because one who has
passed death's door has an eternal continuity, a timeless continuity.
So do not be concerned with life at all, not even your own life. And if you are not interested in life, then
you cannot desire even death, because desire is life. If you become interested in, and desirous of, death, you
are again desiring life -- because you cannot desire death really. To desire death is an impossibility. How
can you desire death? Desire itself means life.
So when I say, "Do not be interested in life too much," I do not mean, "Be interested in death." When I
say, "Do not be interested in life," then you become aware of a fact... which is death. But you cannot desire
it; it is not a desire really.
When I talk about an open fist, it will be good to understand: you have to close your fist, but you do not
have to open it. Opening is not an effort at all; you just do not close it, and it opens. Opening is not an
effort; it is not something positive that has to be done. In fact, if you are making an effort to open your fist it
will just be a closing in reverse. It may look like an opening, but it is simply the reverse of closing.
Real opening only means no closing -- simply no closing; it is a negative phenomenon. If you are not
closing your fist, then the fist is open. Now, even if it is closed it is open. The internal closing has dropped,
so even if it is closed now -- half-closed or whatever -- it is open, because the internal closing is not there.
In the same way, a life that is not desiring is not desiring the opposite. Nondesiring is not the opposite of
desiring. If it is the opposite, then you have begun to desire again. Rather, nondesiring is just the absence of
desiring.
You must feel the distinction. When we say "nondesiring" in words, it becomes the opposite. But
nondesiring is not the opposite of desiring; it is simply the absence of desiring, not the opposite. If you
make it the opposite, you begin to desire again -- you are desiring nondesire -- and when this happens, you
are back in the same circle.
But this is what happens. A person who has become frustrated in life begins to desire death. It again
becomes a desire. He is not desiring death; he is desiring something else other than his life. So even a
person who is filled with a lust for life can commit suicide, but this suicide is not nondesiring; it is really
desiring something else. This is a very interesting point, one of the ultimate points of the whole search. If
you turn to the opposite thing, then you are in the wheel again, in the vicious circle again. And you will
never be out of it. But this happens.
A person renounces life, goes to the forest, or in search of the divine, or in search of liberation or
whatever. But now again desire is there. He has simply changed the object of desire, not desire itself. The
object now is not wealth; it has become God. The object is not this world; it has become that world. But the
object remains; the desiring is the same, the thirst is the same -- and the tension and the anguish will be the
same. The whole process will simply be repeated again with a new object. You can go on changing the
objects of your desire for lives and lives, but you will remain the same because the desiring will be the
same.
So when I say "nondesiring," I mean the absence of desiring: not the futility of the object, but the futility
of desiring itself. It is not the realization that this world is nonsense, because then you will desire the other
world. It is not that life is useless so now you must desire death, annihilation, cessation, nirvana. No, I mean
the futility of desiring itself. The very desiring drops. No object is replaced, substituted; desire just becomes
absent. And this absence, this very absence, becomes life eternal.
But that is a happening: it is not because of your desire. It is a spontaneous outcome of nondesiring, it is
not a consequential result. This happens... but you cannot make this happening your desire. If you do, you
miss the point.
When the hand is open, the fist is open, all the air is there and you are the master of it all. But if you
want to open your fist in order to become the master of the air, you will not be able to open it, because the
very effort, in an inner sense, will be a closing. This mastery of the air is not really a result of your effort,
but rather, a natural happening when there is no effort.
If I simply try not to possess you so that love can flower, this "trying not to possess" will become an
effort. An effort can only possess: even in nonpossession it will be a possession; I will constantly be aware
that I do not possess you. In essence I am saying, "Love me more because I am not trying to possess you."
Then I wonder why the love is not coming.
Someone was here. He had been making every effort toward meditation for at least ten years, but was
reaching nowhere. I told him, "You have made enough effort -- sincerely, seriously. Now do not make any
effort. Just sit down, without any effort."
Then he asked me, "Can I reach meditation with this method, with 'no effort'?"
I told him, "If you are still asking for the result, then a very subtle effort will continuously be there. You
will not be just sitting; you cannot just sit if there are any desires. The desire will be a subtle movement in
you, and the movement will continue. You may be sitting like a stone or like a buddha, but still within the
stone will be moving. Desire is movement."
You cannot remain just sitting if there is a desire. It may appear as if you are, everyone may say that you
are just sitting, but you cannot be just sitting; you can just sit only when desiring is absent. To "just sit" is
not a new desire, just an absence; all desiring has become a futility.
You are not frustrated with life because of objects. Religious people go on telling others that there is
nothing in women, there is nothing in the world, there is nothing in sex, there is nothing in power. But these
are all objects. They are still saying there is nothing in these objects: they are not saying there is nothing in
desiring itself.
You can change objects and you can create new objects of desire. Even eternal life can become an
object; again, the circle sets in -- the fact of desiring. You have desired everything, you have desired too
much.
If you can feel this very fact of desiring -- that desiring is futile, meaningless -- then you will not create
another object to desire; then desiring ceases. Become aware of it and it ceases. Then there is an absence,
and this absence is silent because there is no desire.
With desire you cannot be silent; desire is the real noise. Even if you have no thoughts -- if you have a
controlled mind and you can stop thinking -- a deeper desire will continue, because you are stopping this
very thinking only to achieve something. A subtle noise will be there. Somewhere inside someone will be
looking and asking whether the desired something has been achieved or not. "Thoughts have been stopped.
Where is divine realization, where is God, where is enlightenment?" But desiring itself will become futile if
you can become aware of this.
The whole trick of the mind is that you always become aware that some object has become futile. Then
you change the object, and in changing the object the desire continues to take hold of your consciousness. It
always happens that when this house becomes useless then another house becomes attractive; when this
man becomes unattractive, repulsive, then another man becomes attractive. This goes on; and the moment
you become aware of the futility of what you are desiring, the mind goes on to some other objects.
When this happens, the gap is lost. When something becomes futile, useless, unattractive, remain in the
gap.... Be aware of whether the object has become futile or whether it is desiring itself that is futile. And if
you can feel the very futility of desire, suddenly something drops in you. Suddenly you are transformed to a
new level of consciousness. This is a nothingness, an absence, a negativity; no new circle begins.
In this moment, you are out of the wheel of samsara, the world. But you cannot make it an object of
your desire to be out of the wheel. Do you feel the distinction? You cannot make desirelessness an object.
QUESTION: WASN'T BUDDHA'S DESIRE FOR REALIZATION A DESIRE?
Yes, it was a desire; Buddha had the desire. When Buddha said, "I will not leave this place. I am not
going to leave unless I achieve enlightenment," it was a desire. And with this desire, a vicious circle set in.
Even for Buddha it set in.
Buddha could not achieve enlightenment for a long time because of this desire. Because of it, he
searched and searched for six years. He did everything that was possible to be done, that could be done. He
did everything, but he did not get even an inch nearer; he remained the same, even more frustrated. He had
left the world, renounced everything for the sake of realization, and nothing had come of it. For six years
continuously every effort was made, but nothing came of it.
Then one day, near Bodh Gaya, he came to take a bath in the Niranjana -- the river there. He was so
weak because of so much fasting that he could not come out of the river. He just remained there by the root
of a tree. He was so weak that he could not step out of the river. The thought came to his mind that if he had
become so weak that he could not even cross a small river, then how could he cross the greater ocean of
existence? So on that particular day, even the desire to achieve realization became futile. He said,
"Enough!"
He came out of the water and sat under a tree, the bodhi tree. That particular night the very desiring to
achieve became futile. He had desired the world and found that it was just a dream, and not only a dream --
a nightmare. For six years continuously he had desired enlightenment, and that too proved to be only a
dream. And not only a dream: it proved to be an even deeper nightmare.
He was completely frustrated; there was nothing left to desire. He had known the world very well -- he
had known it very well -- and he could not go back to it; there was nothing for him there. He had known the
effort of so-called religions, of all the religions that were prominent in India; he had practiced all of their
techniques, and nothing had come of it. There was nothing else to try now, no motivation remained, so he
just dropped down on the ground near the bodhi tree and for the whole night he remained there -- without
any desire. There was nothing left to desire; desiring itself had become futile.
In the morning, when he awakened, the last star was setting. He looked at the star and for the first time
in his life his eyes were without any mist, because he was without any desire. The last star was setting, and
as the star set, something in him withered with it: the self, because the self cannot exist without desiring.
And he became enlightened.
This enlightenment came at a moment when there was no desire. And it had been prevented by six years
of desiring. Really, the phenomenon happens only when you are out of the circle. So even Buddha, because
of desiring enlightenment, had to wander uselessly for six years. This moment of transformation -- this
jumping out of the circle, out of the wheel of life -- only comes, only happens, when there is no desire.
Buddha said, "I achieved it when there was no achieving mind; I found it when there was no search. This
happened only when there was no effort."
This, again, becomes a very difficult thing to understand, because with the mind we cannot understand
anything which is effortless. Mind means effort. The mind can tackle anything, can maneuver anything
which can be "done," but the mind cannot ever conceive of something which "happens," and cannot be
done. The faculty of the mind is to do something; it is an instrument for doing. The very faculty of mind is
to achieve something, to gain some desire.
Just as it is impossible to hear with the eyes or to see with the hands, it is impossible for the mind to
conceive or to feel that which happens when you are not doing anything. The mind has no memory of such a
thing. It knows only things that can be done and that cannot be done; it knows only things in which it
succeeds and in which it fails. But it has not known anything which happens when nothing is done. So what
to do?
Start with a desire. That desire is not going to lead you to the point of the happening, but that desire can
lead you to the futility of that desire. One has to begin with desire; it is impossible to begin with no desire.
If you could begin with no desire, then the happening would happen this very moment; then no technique,
no method, would be needed. If you could begin with no desire, this very moment it happens. But that is
impossible.
You cannot begin with no desiring. The mind will make this nondesiring also a desired object. The mind
will say, "Okay, I will try not to desire." It will say, "Really, it looks fascinating. I will try to do something
so that this no desiring happens." But the mind is bound to have some desire. It can begin only with desire,
but it may not end in desire.
One has to begin with desiring something that cannot be achieved by desiring. But if you are aware of
this fact -- if you are aware of the fact that you are desiring something that cannot be desired -- it helps. This
awareness of the fact helps; now, any moment, you can take the jump. And when you take the jump, there
will be no desiring.
You have desired the world; now desire the divine. That is how one has to begin. The beginning is
wrong, but you have to begin that way because of this built-in process of the mind. This is the only way to
change it.
For example, I tell you that you cannot go through the wall to get to the outside; you have to go through
the door. And when I say, through the door, "door" means only the place where there is no wall. So when I
say you have to go through the "no wall" to the outside, it is because you cannot go through the wall. The
wall cannot be the door, and if you try to get out through the wall you will be frustrated.
But you have not known anything like a door. You have never been outside, so how can you know that
there is a door? You have always been in this room -- the room of the mind, the room of desires. You have
always been in this room, so you have known only this wall, you have not known the door. Even if the door
is there, it has appeared to you as a part of the wall; it has been a wall to you. Unless you open it, you cannot
know it is a door.
So I say to you, "You cannot go outside through the wall. You cannot do anything with a wall; it will
not lead you outside. You need the door." But you do not know anything about the door; you know only the
wall. Even the door appears to you to be part of the wall. Then what is to be done?
I say, "Try from anywhere, but begin." You will be frustrated. You will go around the whole room, try
every nook and corner -- everywhere. You will be frustrated because the wall cannot open, but the door is
somewhere, and you may stumble upon it. That is the only way: begin with the wall, because that is the only
beginning possible. Begin with the wall, and you will stumble upon the door. It is a fact that there is a door,
that the door is not a wall, and that you cannot pass through the wall, you have to pass through the door.
This very fact will make the stumbling easier. Really, whenever you are frustrated with the wall, the door
becomes more of a possibility, more of a potential. Your search becomes deeper through this.
Mind is desiring. The mind cannot do anything without desire. You cannot transcend the mind through
desiring, because the mind is the desiring. So the mind has to desire even that which is found only when
there is no desire. But begin with the wall. Know desire, and you will stumble upon the door. Even Buddha
had to begin with a desire, but no one told him -- the fact was not known to him -- that the door opens only
when there is no desire.
As I understand it, struggling with desire is the disease. Giving up the struggle is the freedom. That is
the only real death: when you just give up. If you can just lie down and die with no struggle to live, without
even an indication of struggle, that death can become a realization. If you just lie down and accept -- with
no movement inside, with no desire, with no help to be found, with no way to be sought -- if you just lie
down and accept, that acceptance will be a great thing.
It is not so easy. Even if you are lying down, the struggle is still there. You may be exhausted: that is
another thing. That is not acceptance, that is not readiness; somewhere in the mind you are still struggling.
But, really, to lie down and die with no struggle makes death become ecstasy. Death becomes samadhi;
death becomes realization. And then you say, "Of course!"
You may not have the desire to go out of this room. The desire to come out can come only in two ways.
The first is that somehow you have had a glimpse of something of the outside from a hole in the wall or
from the window -- somewhere you have had a glimpse; or, somehow, in some mysterious way, in some
moment, the door opened and you had a glimpse. This happens and goes on happening: in some mysterious
moment the door opens for just a single moment like a flash of light and then closes again. You have tasted
something of the outside; now the desire comes.
The desire comes: you are in the dark and there is a sudden flash of light. In a moment, in a single,
simultaneous moment, everything becomes clear; the darkness is not there. And then again the darkness is
there; everything is lost, but now you cannot be the same again. This has become part of your experience.
In some moments of silence, in some moments of love, in some moments of suffering, in some moments
of sudden accidents, the door suddenly opens and you have a taste. These things cannot be arranged; they
are accidents. They cannot be arranged. When someone is in love, a door opens for a moment; this opening
is really a happening. In deep love, somehow your desire ceases. The very moment is enough; there is no
desire for the future. If I love someone, then in that very moment of love the mind is not. This moment is
eternity. For me, now, in this moment, there is no future -- I am not concerned with the future at all -- and
there is no past. I am not bothered about it. The whole thought process has stopped at this moment of
existence. Everything has stopped, and suddenly, in this nondesiring moment, a door opens.
So love has many glimpses of the divine. If you have really been in love, even for a moment, then you
cannot remain "in this room" for long. Then you have tasted something that is of the beyond.
But again the mind begins to play tricks. It says, "This moment has happened because of this person
whom I love. I must possess this person forever, otherwise this thing will not happen again." And the more
you possess, the more you become concerned with the future. Then this moment will not come again. Even
with this same person it is not going to come again, because with expectation the mind is again tense. The
moment happened when there were no expectations. And then the lovers go on condemning each other --
"You are not loving me as much as you did before" -- because the moment is not happening.
This moment, this glimpse, is not in anyone's hand, and the lover cannot do anything about it. Whatever
he tries to do will just be a destruction of the whole thing. He cannot do, because it was not his doing at all;
it was just a spontaneous phenomenon. It happened, and the door opened.
It can happen in many ways. Someone you love has died and the death has struck like a dagger in your
mind. The past and future are separated: death has become like a dagger in you. The whole past has stopped
and, in your deep suffering, there is no future; everything stops. You may get a taste of the divine, of the
"outside." But then your mind again begins to play tricks. It begins to weep, it begins to do something; it
begins to think that "I am feeling suffering because someone has died." It becomes concerned with the
other.
But if, at the moment of death, you can remain just in the moment, then it sometimes happens; then you
can glimpse something of the beyond. In some accident, it can happen. In a motor accident, it can happen.
Things stop suddenly. Time stops. You cannot desire because there is no time/space to desire in. Your car is
falling from a height; as it falls, you cannot remember the past, you cannot desire for the future. The
moment has become all. In this moment, it can happen.
So there are two ways through which the desire to go beyond is created. The first is that somehow you
have had a taste of the beyond. But this cannot be planned: you have it or you don't have it. Still, once you
have had this taste you begin to desire it. The desire can become a hindrance -- it becomes a hindrance -- but
still, that is how things begin; first you have to desire nondesiring.
Or it happens in another way. The other way is that you have no taste of the beyond -- none! You have
not known the beyond at all, but this room has become a suffering; you cannot tolerate it anymore. You do
not know the beyond at all, but whatever it may be, you are ready to choose it, even though it is unknown,
because this room, this very room, has become a misery, a hell. You do not know what is beyond -- whether
there is anything or not, whether the beyond exists or not -- but you cannot remain in this room anymore;
this room has become a suffering, a hell. Then you try -- then you begin to desire the unknown, the beyond.
Then again there is desire: the desire to escape from here. But you have to begin with a desire for that which
cannot be desired, for that which cannot be attained by desiring.
Remember this fact continuously: go on doing whatever you are doing, constantly remembering that by
doing alone it cannot be achieved. And there are so many methods to help you to do this. One is to
remember that you cannot get it; only God can give it to you. This is simply a way to make you aware that
your efforts are meaningless; only grace will do it. This is one way. It is just saying the same thing in a more
metaphorical way, in a language that can be understood more easily: that you cannot do anything.
But that does not mean that you are not to do anything. You should do everything -- but remember, it is
not going to happen simply by your doing. Something happens to you, something unknown; grace descends
upon you. Your efforts will make you more receptive to the grace, that's all; but it is not as a direct result of
your efforts that grace descends upon you.
This is how religious people have been trying to express this same phenomenon. A Buddha, or a type
with a mind like Buddha's, will express it more scientifically. Buddha would not have used the word grace,
because he would have said that you will even long for grace, desire grace. One can even desire grace, and
go to the temple and cry and weep and ask for divine grace. So Buddha said, "It will not work. There is no
such thing as grace. When you are in a nondesiring state of mind, it happens."
So it depends. It depends! It may be meaningful for someone as long as he understands that grace cannot
be asked for, cannot be requested, cannot be demanded, cannot be persuaded -- because if you can persuade
then it is not grace; it has become part of your effort. Nothing can be done about grace; you just have to
wait. If you can understand that grace comes only in waiting and you do not have to do anything, then go on
doing anything and everything, knowing very well that nothing is going to happen by your doing -- it will
happen only in a nondoing moment. Then, the very concept of grace can be helpful. But if you begin to ask
for grace and pray for grace, it will not happen at all. Then it is better to remember that we are in a vicious
circle which has to be broken from somewhere.
Begin by desiring, begin by doing. Remember constantly the fact that it cannot be done, and go on
doing.
Take an example: you are not feeling sleep descending on you. What to do? -- sleep is not coming.
Really, you cannot do anything, because the very doing will be a disturbance. If you do something then,
because of the doing sleep will not come. Sleep needs a nondoing mind; it descends upon you only when
you are not doing anything. But tell a person who is sleepless not to do anything and sleep will come, and
then his very lying in the bed will be a tension. "Not to do anything" will become a doing. Tell him, "Relax
and sleep will come," and he will try to relax, but it will be an effort and with effort there is no relaxation.
Then what to do?
I use another method. I tell him to do everything he can do to bring sleep. "Do anything you want to do:
jump, run, whatever you like. Do everything you can do." I tell him, "It is not going to come by your doing
-- but do!"
The very doing soon becomes futile. He runs, he goes on doing many automatic problems, he solves
puzzles, he repeats mantras, he goes on doing -- and I say, "Do it wholeheartedly." I know very well that the
happening is not going to come about by his doing, but then the doing will be exhausted and he will feel that
it is just nonsense. In that moment, when doing has become futile, suddenly he will be asleep. This sleep has
not come because of his doing at all, but the doing has helped in a way; it has helped because it made him
aware that it was futile.
So go on desiring, doing something for the beyond, constantly remembering it is not going to come by
your effort. But do not stop these efforts, because your efforts are going to help in a way. They will make
you so frustrated with the very fact of desiring that suddenly you will sit down and you will be just sitting,
not doing, and the thing happens! And there is the jump -- the explosion.
So I do something very contradictory: I know that with no technique can it be possible, and still I go on
devising techniques. I know that you cannot do anything, and still I insist, "Do something!"
Do you understand me?
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #11
Chapter title: What is the Soul?
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF11
Audio: No
Video: No
QUESTION: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU CALL ATMAN, SOUL? IS THIS SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF OR
IS IT SOMETHING INDIVIDUAL?
Really, no matter what we call it, we will miss it. Any conceptualization is going to miss the real -- any
conceptualization -- so whatever has been known as the self, the soul, the atman, is not the real thing. It
cannot be. All those who have defined it, have defined it with a condition: that they are trying something
that is absurd. That which cannot be said they are saying; that which cannot be defined they are defining;
that which cannot be known they are making a theory about.
There have been three attitudes about it.
First, there have been the mystics, the knowers, who have remained totally silent about it. They will not
give any definition; they say definition is futile. Then there has been another group of mystics -- the largest
group -- that says, "Even an effort that is futile can be helpful. Sometimes even untrue theory leads to truth,
sometimes even wrongs may become rights, sometimes even a false step may lead you to a right end. It may
look false at the moment, or in the end it may even prove false, but still, false devices can help."
This second group feels that by remaining silent you are still saying something, that nothing can be said.
And this second type of mystic has a point. Definitions belong to them. Then there is a third type who has
been neither silent nor who has defined. They have just denied the whole thing in order that you will not be
at all obsessed with it.
Buddha belongs to this third type. If you ask him whether there is a soul, whether there is God, whether
there is an existence beyond life, he will just deny it. Even on the verge of death when someone asked him,
"Will you be, beyond death?" he denied it.
He said, "No! I will not be. I will drop out of existence just like a flame that goes out." You can't ask
where the flame is when it goes out; it just ceases. That is why Buddha says that nirvana means "cessation
of the flame," not just moksha, not just liberation. Buddha says, "This is liberation: to cease completely. To
be is to be somewhere, somehow, in slavery." This is the third type.
These three types all quarrel, because one who speaks is bound to feel that those who have remained
silent are not compassionate enough, that they should have said something for those who cannot understand
silence. And those who have defined, have defined in so many ways that there are quarrels about it:
quarreling is bound to be there.
All definitions are devices. One can define in any way; Mahavira defines in one way and Shankara is
going to define in another way, because all definitions are equally false or true. It makes no difference. How
one defines depends on the type of person he is. There are so many definitions, and those definitions have
become so many religions, so many philosophical systems. They have made man's mind so confused by
now that really it sometimes appears that those who have remained silent were more compassionate.
Definitions have become conflicts. One definition cannot allow the other, otherwise it contradicts itself.
Mahavira tried to say that every definition has some truth in it, but only some; then something remains
false about every definition. But it was impossible for Mahavira to have a big following because if you do
not define clearly, the confused mind becomes even more confused. If you say, "Every path is right," then
you are saying, "There is no path," and one who has come to find the path is just bewildered. You cannot
get any help from me if I say, "Every path is right: wherever you go, you go to the divine. Go anywhere, do
anything, everything has some truth." It is true, but still it is not helpful.
If you define in a particular way and make the definition absolute, all other definitions become false.
Because Shankara has to define things exactly he may say, "Buddha is not right, he is wrong." But if
Buddha is made to appear wrong, it just creates confusion. How can a Buddha be wrong? How can a Christ
be wrong? Is only Shankara right? Then there are conflicts.
Even the third attitude, the Buddhist attitude of denying, has not helped. It has not helped because by
denying the very search is lost, and without the search there is no need of denying. Very few people are
capable of understanding what total cessation is. The lust for life is so deep-rooted that we are even reaching
for a god who is a part of our lust for life: we are searching for more life, really. Even if we are searching
for moksha, we are not searching for total death. We want to be there somehow.
Buddha had been asked, and asked continuously for forty years, only one question: "If we are to cease
completely, then why this whole effort? It seems meaningless! Just to cease? Just to not be? Why this whole
effort?" And yet people around Buddha felt that he had not ceased; really, he had become more -- that was
the feeling. Buddha had become something more, but still he went on denying and denying.
How can you define something that cannot be defined? But you will either have to be silent or you will
have to define it.
As for me, I do not fall into any of these three groups; that is why I cannot be consistent. Each of these
three types can be consistent, but I am not concerned with the concept of soul at all. I am always concerned
with the questioner, the one who has asked. How can he be helped? If I think that he can be helped through
positive faith, then I proclaim it; if I feel that he can be helped by silence, then I remain silent; if I feel he
can be helped by definition, then I give the definition. To me, everything is just a device. There is nothing
serious about it: it is just a device.
A definition may not be true; in fact, if I have to make it meaningful to you, it cannot be true really. You
have not known what soul is; you have not known what this explosion is which we call Brahman, the
divine. You do not know the meaning, you know only the words. Words that you have not experienced are
just meaningless sounds. You can create the sound "god," but unless you have known God it is just a sound.
"Heart" is a meaningful word, "cow" is a meaningful word, because you have yourself experienced what
they mean. But "god" is just a word for you, "soul" is just a word. If I have to help you, I can help you only
with a false definition, because you have no experience of God, no experience of the soul. And unless I can
define it by something you know, a definition will be useless.
For a person who has never known a flower but has known a diamond, I must define flowers through
diamonds. There is no other way. A flower has nothing to do with diamonds, but still, something can be
indicated through it. I can say, "Flowers are living diamonds: living diamonds!" The whole thing is false --
diamonds are irrelevant -- but if I say, "Flowers are living diamonds, growing diamonds," I create a desire in
you to experience them. A definition is there only to help you to move to the experience. All definitions are
like that.
If you have not known diamonds, if you have not known anything positive for me to define through,
then I have to define through negatives. If you do not have any positive feeling for anything, I will define
through negatives. I will say, "The misery that you have is not part of the soul. The dukkha, the anguish that
you are, is not part of the soul." I have to define negatively in terms of something with which you are
crippled, from which you are dying; in terms of something with which you are burdened, which has become
just a hell to you. I have to define negatively by saying, "It will not be this, it will be just the opposite."
So with me it depends. It depends. I have no absolute answers, I have only devices -- only psychological
answers. And the answer does not depend on me, it depends on you: because of you I have to give a
particular answer.
That is why I cannot be a guru -- never! Buddha can become one but I never can. Because you are so
inconsistent, every individual is so different, how can I become consistent? I cannot. And I cannot create a
sect, because for this consistency is very much needed. If you want to create a sect you must be consistent,
foolishly consistent; you must deny all inconsistencies. They are there but you must deny them, otherwise
you cannot attract followers. So I am less a guru and more like a psychiatrist -- plus something. To me, you
are meaningful. If you can understand this, then something more can be said.
By "consciousness" I mean a movement toward total aliveness. You are never totally alive; sometimes
you are more alive -- that you know -- and sometimes you are less alive. And when you are more alive you
feel happy. Happiness is nothing but an interpretation of your greater aliveness. If you love someone, then
you become more alive with him, and that greater aliveness gives you the feeling of happiness. Then you go
on projecting the reasons for your happiness onto someone else.
When you encounter nature you are more alive, when you are on a mountain you become more alive,
and when you are just living with machines you are less alive, because of the whole association. With trees
you become more alive because you have once been trees. Deep down we are just walking trees -- with
roots in the air, not in the earth. And when you face the ocean you feel more alive because the first life was
born in the ocean. In fact, in our bodies we still have the same composition of water as the ocean, the same
salt quantity as the ocean has.
When you are with a woman, if you are of the opposite sex, you begin to feel more alive than with a
man. With a man you feel less alive because nothing is pulling you out. You are enclosed, the opposite
energy pulls you out; the flame flickers, you can be more alive. And whenever you begin to feel more alive,
you begin to feel happy.
When we use the word soul, we mean total aliveness; total aliveness not with someone else but with
yourself; total aliveness with no outward causes. The ocean is not there and you become oceanic; the sky is
not there and you become the whole space; the beloved is not there and you are just love, nothing else.
What I mean is that you begin to be alive independently. There is no dependence on anything or anyone:
you are liberated. And with this liberation, this inner liberation, your happiness cannot be lost. It is total
aliveness, it is total consciousness. It cannot be lost.
With this total aliveness many things happen that cannot really be understood unless they have
happened. But tentatively I can give you this definition of the soul as being totally conscious, totally alive,
totally blissful, without being bound by anything. If you begin to love, or if you can be happy without a
reason, then you are soul, not a body. Why then?
By body I mean the part of your soul that always exists in relation to the outside existence. You begin to
feel sad when some cause for sadness is there, or you begin to feel good when some cause for happiness is
there, but you never feel yourself without something else being there. That feeling, that state when nothing
is there, but you are in your total aliveness, in your total consciousness, is the soul.
But this is a tentative definition. It just indicates; it doesn't define, it just shows. Much is there, but it is
just a finger pointing to the moon. Never mistake the finger for the moon. The finger is not the moon, it is
just an indication. Forget the finger and look at the moon. But all definitions are like that.
You ask whether the soul is individual. It is a meaningless question, but it is pertinent because of you. It
is like a question that a blind man would ask.
A blind man moves with his staff. He cannot move without it: he searches and gropes in the dark with it.
If we talk to him about operating on his eyes to heal them so he can see, the blind man can ask, very
pertinently, "When I have my eyes will I still be able to grope in the dark with my staff?"
If we say, "You will not need your staff," he cannot believe it. He will say, "Without my staff I cannot
exist, I cannot live. What you are saying is not acceptable. I cannot conceive of it. Without my staff, I am
not. So what will become of my staff? First you tell me!"
Really, this individuality is like the blind man's staff. You are groping in the dark with an ego because
you have no soul; this ego, this "I," is just a groping because you do not have eyes. The moment you have
become totally alive, the ego is just lost. It was part of your blindness, part of your nonaliveness or partial
aliveness, part of your unconsciousness, part of your ignorance. It just drops.
It is not that you are individual or you are not individual; both things become irrelevant. Individuality is
not relevant, but questions continue because the source of questioning remains the same.
When Maulingaputta came to Buddha for the first time he asked many questions. Buddha said, "Are you
asking in order to solve the questions or are you only asking to get answers?"
Maulingaputta said, "I have come to ask you, and you have begun to ask me! Let me ponder over it, I
must think about it." He thought about it and the second day he said, "Really, I have come to solve them."
Buddha said to him, "Have you asked these same questions to anyone else as well?"
Maulingaputta said, "I have asked everyone continuously for thirty years."
Buddha said, "By asking for thirty years you must have got many answers -- many, many. But have any
proved to be the answer?"
Maulingaputta said, "None!"
Then Buddha said, "I will not give you any answers. In thirty years of questioning many answers have
been given; I can add some more but that is not going to help. So I will give you the solution, not the
answer."
Maulingaputta said, "Okay, give it to me."
But Buddha said, "It cannot be given by me, it has to be grown in you. So remain for one year with me
silently. Not a single question will be allowed. Be totally silent, be with me, and after one year you can ask;
then I will give you the answer."
Sariputta, the chief disciple of Buddha, was sitting nearby under a tree. He began to laugh.
Maulingaputta asked, "Why is Sariputta laughing? What is there to laugh about?"
Sariputta said, "Ask right now if you have to ask; do not wait for one year. We have been fooled -- this
happened to me too -- because after one year we never ask. If you have remained totally silent for a year,
then the very source of questioning drops. And this man is deceptive! This man is very deceptive," Sariputta
said. "After one year he will not give you any answers."
So Buddha said, "I will remain with my promise, Sariputta. I have remained with my promise with you,
too. It is not my fault that you do not ask."
One year went by and Maulingaputta remained silent: silently doing meditation and becoming more and
more silent outwardly and inwardly. Then he became a silent pool, with no vibrations, no waves. He forgot
that the year had passed. The day that he was to ask had come but he himself forgot.
Buddha said, "There used to be a man called Maulingaputta here. Where is he? He has to ask some
question. The year has passed, the day has come, so he must come to me." There were ten thousand monks
there and everyone tried to find out who Maulingaputta was. And Maulingaputta also tried to find out where
he was!
Buddha called to him and said, "Why are you looking around? You are the man. And I have to fulfill my
promise, so you ask and I will give you the answer."
Maulingaputta said, "The one who was asking is dead; that is why I was looking around to see who this
man Maulingaputta is. I too have heard his name, but he is long since gone."
The original source must be transformed, otherwise we go on asking; and there are persons who will be
supplying you with answers. You feel good in asking, they feel good in answering, but what goes on is only
a mutual deception.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #12
Chapter title: LSD and Meditation
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF12
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QUESTION: CAN LSD BE USED AS A HELP IN MEDITATION?
LSD can be used as a help, but the help is very dangerous; it is not so easy. If you use a mantra, even
that can become difficult to throw, but if you use acid, LSD it will be even more difficult to throw.
The moment you are on an LSD trip you are not in control. Chemistry takes control and you are not the
master, and once you are not the master it is difficult to regain that position. The chemical is not the slave
now, you are the slave. Now how to control it is not going to be your choice. Once you take LSD as a help
you are making a slave of the master and your whole body chemistry will be affected by it.
Your body will begin to crave LSD. Now the craving will not just be of the mind as it is when you get
attached to a mantra. When you use acid as a help, the craving becomes part of the body; the LSD goes to
the very cells of the body. It changes them. Your inner chemical structure becomes different. Then all the
body cells begin to crave acid and it will be difficult to drop it.
LSD can be used to bring you to meditation only if your body has been prepared for it. So if you ask if it
can be used in the West, I will say that it is not for the West at all. It can be used only in the East -- if the
body is totally prepared for it. Yoga has used it, tantra has used it, there are schools of tantra and yoga that
have used LSD as a help, but then they prepare your body first. There is a long process of purification of the
body. Your body becomes so pure and you become such a great master of it that even chemistry cannot
become your master now. So yoga allows it, but in a very specific way.
First your body must be purified chemically. Then you will be in such control of the body that even your
body chemistry can be controlled. For example, there are certain yogic exercises: if you take poison,
through a particular yogic exercise you can order your blood not to mix with it and the poison will pass
through the body and come out in the urine without having mixed with the blood at all. If you can do this, if
you can control your body chemistry, then you can use anything, because you have remained the master.
In tantra, particularly in "leftist" tantra, they use alcohol to help meditation. It looks absurd; it is not.
The seeker will take alcohol in a particular quantity and then will try to be alert. Consciousness must not be
lost. By and by the quantity of alcohol will be raised, but the consciousness must remain alert. The person
has taken alcohol, it has been absorbed in the body, but the mind remains above it; consciousness is not lost.
Then the quantity of alcohol is raised higher and higher. Through this practice a point comes when any
amount of alcohol can be given and the mind remains alert. Only then can LSD be a help.
In the West there are no practices to purify the body or to increase consciousness through changes in
body chemistry. Acid is taken without any preparation in the West. It is not going to help; rather, on the
contrary, it may destroy the whole mind.
There are many problems. Once you have been on an LSD trip you have a glimpse of something you
have never known, something you have never felt. If you begin to practice meditation it is a long process,
but LSD is not a process. You take it and the process is over; then the body begins to work. Meditation is a
long process -- you have to do it for years, only then will the results be forthcoming. And when you have
experienced a shortcut, it will be difficult to follow a long process. The mind will crave to return to using
the drugs. So it is difficult to meditate once you have known a glimpse through chemistry; to undertake
something that is a long process will be difficult. Meditation needs more stamina, more trust, more waiting,
and it will be difficult because now you can compare.
Secondly, any method is bad if you are not in control all the time. When you are meditating you can stop
at any moment. If you want to stop, you can stop this very moment; you can come out of it. You cannot stop
an LSD trip: once you have taken LSD you have to complete the circle. Now you are not the master.
Anything that makes a slave of you is ultimately not going to help spiritually, because spirituality
basically means to be the master of oneself. So I wouldn't suggest shortcuts. I am not against LSD, I may
sometimes be for it, but then a long preliminary preparation is necessary. Then you will be the master. But
then LSD is not a shortcut. It will take even longer than meditation. Hatha yoga takes years to prepare a
body -- twenty years, twenty-five years, then a body is ready; now you can use any chemical help and it will
not be destructive to your being. But then the process is far longer.
Then LSD can be used; I am in favor of it then. If you are prepared to take twenty years to prepare the
body in order to take LSD, then it is not destructive. But the same thing can be done in two years with
meditation. Because the body is more gross, mastery is more difficult. The mind is more subtle so mastery is
easier. The body is further away from your being, so there is a greater gap; with the mind the gap is shorter.
In India the primitive method to prepare the body to be ready for meditation was hatha yoga. It took so
long a time to prepare the body that sometimes hatha yoga had to invent methods to prolong life so that
hatha yoga could be continued. It was such a long process that sixty years might not be enough, seventy
years might not be enough. And there is a problem: if the mastery is not achieved in this life then in the next
life you have to begin from abc because you have a new body. The whole effort has been lost. You do not
have a new mind in your next life, the old mind continues, so whatever is attained through the mind remains
with you, but whatever is attained through the body is lost with every death. So hatha yoga had to invent
methods to prolong life for two hundred to three hundred years so that mastery could be attained.
If the mastery is of the mind then you can change the body, but the preparedness of the body belongs to
the body alone. Hatha yoga invented many methods so that the process could be completed, but then even
greater methods were discovered: how to control the mind directly -- raja yoga. With these methods the
body can be a little helpful, but there is no need to be too concerned with it. So hatha yoga adepts have said
that LSD can be used, but raja yoga cannot say LSD can be used, because raja yoga has no methodology to
prepare the body. Direct meditation is used.
Sometimes it happens -- only sometimes, rarely -- that if you have a glimpse through LSD and do not
become addicted to it, that glimpse may become a thirst in you to seek something further. So to try it once is
good, but it becomes difficult to know where to stop and how to stop. The first trip is good, to be on it once
is good; you become aware of a different world and then you begin to seek, you begin to search, because of
it -- but then it becomes difficult to stop. This is the problem. If you can stop, then to take LSD once is
good. But that "if" is a great one.
Mulla Nasruddin used to say that he never took more than one glass of wine. Many friends objected to
his statement because they had seen him taking one glass after another. He said, "The second glass is taken
by the first; 'I' take only one. The second is taken by the first and the third by the second. Then I am not the
master. I am master only for the first, so how can I say that I take more than one? 'I' take only one -- always
only one!"
With the first you are the master; with the second you are not. The first will try to take a second, and
then it will go on continuously; then it is no longer in your hands. To begin anything is easy because you are
the master, but to end anything is difficult because then you are not the master.
So I am not against LSD, and if I am against it, it is conditional. This is the condition: if you can remain
the master, then okay. Use anything, but remain the master. And if you cannot remain the master, then do
not enter into a dangerous road at all. Do not enter at all; it will be better.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #13
Chapter title: Intuition: A Non-Explanation
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF13
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QUESTION: CAN INTUITION BE EXPLAINED SCIENTIFICALLY? IS IT A PHENOMENON OF THE MIND?
Intuition cannot be explained scientifically because the very phenomenon is unscientific and irrational.
The very phenomenon of intuition is irrational. In language it looks okay to ask, "Can intuition be
explained?" It means: can intuition be reduced to intellect? But intuition means something beyond the
intellect, something not of the intellect, something coming from someplace where intellect is totally
unaware. So intellect can feel it, but it cannot explain it.
The leap can be felt because there is a gap. Intuition can be felt by the intellect -- it can be noted down
that something has happened -- but it cannot be explained, because explanation means causality.
Explanation means: from where does it come? why does it come? what is the cause? And it comes from
somewhere else, not from the intellect itself, so there is no intellectual cause; there is no reason, no link, no
continuity in the intellect.
For example, Mohammed was an illiterate person. No one knew about him; no one ever felt that such a
great thing as the Koran could come out of him. There was not a single act, not a single thought, that was
special about him; he was just an ordinary man -- absolutely ordinary. No one ever felt that something
extraordinary was possible in him. Then, suddenly, this parable is recorded:
An angel appeared to Mohammed and said, "Read!"
Mohammed said to him, "How can I read? I do not know how; I cannot read, I am illiterate."
The angel repeated again, "Read!"
Mohammed again said, "But how can I read? I do not know anything about reading."
Then the angel said, "Read! By the grace of God, you will be able." And Mohammed began to read.
This is intuition.
He returned to his house trembling, trembling because he could not conceive of what had happened. He
could read -- and he had read something inconceivable. The first ayat of the Koran had been given to him.
He could not understand it because nothing in his whole past related to it. He could not feel the meaning of
it; he had become the vehicle for something that was unrelated to his past, absolutely unrelated. Something
from the unknown had penetrated him. It might have been related to something else, to someone else, but it
did not relate to Mohammed at all. This is the penetration.
He came into his house trembling, he felt feverish; he just went on thinking, "What has happened?" He
was unable to understand what had happened, and for three days he was in deep fever, trembling, because
there was no cause for what had occurred. He could not even gather the courage to say something to
anyone. He was an illiterate: who was going to believe him? He himself could not believe what had
happened; it was unbelievable.
After three days of deep fever, coma, unconsciousness, he gathered the courage to tell his wife, but only
under the condition that she not tell anyone else. "It seems that I have gone mad," he said. But his wife was
older than he was and more learned. She was forty and Mohammed was twenty-six; she was a rich woman,
a rich widow. She felt that something real had happened, and she was Mohammed's first convert.
Only then could Mohammed get up the nerve to speak to some friends and relatives. Whenever he
would speak he would tremble, perspire, because what was happening was inconceivable. That is why
Mohammed insisted -- and this became a tenet, a foundational tenet of Islam -- that "I am not divine; I am
nothing special. I am not extraordinary, I am just a vehicle."
This is what is meant by surrender and nothing else -- nothing else! The postman just delivers the
message to you; you yourself cannot even understand it.
This is intuition. It is a different realm of happening that is not related to the intellect at all, although it
can penetrate the intellect. It must be understood that a higher reality can penetrate a lower reality, but the
lower cannot penetrate the higher. So intuition can penetrate intellect because it is higher, but intellect
cannot penetrate intuition because it is lower. It is just like your mind can penetrate your body, but your
body cannot penetrate the mind. Your being can penetrate the mind, but the mind cannot penetrate the
being. That is why, if you are going into the being, you have to separate yourself from body and mind, both.
They cannot penetrate a higher phenomenon.
As you go into a higher reality, the lower world of happenings has to be dropped. There is no
explanation of the higher in the lower, because the very terms of explanation are not existential there; they
are meaningless. But the intellect can feel the gap, it can know the gap, it can come to feel that "something
has happened which is beyond me." If even this much can be done, the intellect has done much.
But intellect can also reject. That is what is meant by a faithful mind or a faithless mind. If you feel that
what cannot be explained by the intellect is not, then you are a nonbeliever. Then you will continue in this
lower existence -- tethered to it. Then you disallow mystery, then you disallow intuition to speak to you;
this is what a rationalist mind means. The rationalist will not even see that something from beyond has
come.
Mohammed was chosen. There were scholars around, many scholars, but Mohammed, a very illiterate
person, was chosen because he was faithful. The higher could penetrate; he could allow the higher to enter
into him. If you are rationally trained, you will not allow the higher; you will deny it, you will say, "It
cannot be. It must be my imagination; it must be my dream. Unless I can prove it rationally, I will not
accept it."
A rational mind becomes closed, closed within the boundaries of reasoning, and intuition cannot
penetrate. But you can use the intellect without being closed; then you can use reason as an instrument, but
you remain open, you are receptive to the higher. If something comes, you are receptive. Then you can use
your intellect as a help: it notes down that "something has happened that is beyond me." It can help you to
understand this gap.
Beyond that, intellect can be used for expression -- not for explanation, for expression. A buddha is
totally non-explanatory; he is expressive, but non-explanatory. All the Upanishads are expressive without
any explanations. They say, "This is such, this is so; this is what is happening. If you want, come in; do not
stand outside. No explanation is possible from the inside to the outside, so come in. Become an insider."
Even if you come inside, things will not be explained to you; you will come to know and feel them. Intellect
can try to understand, but it is bound to be a failure. The higher cannot be reduced to the lower.
QUESTION: DOESN'T INTUITION COME TO ONE THROUGH THOUGHT WAVES THAT ARE JUST LIKE
RADIO WAVES?
This, again, will be very difficult to explain. If intuition comes through some kind of waves, then sooner
or later the intellect will be able to explain it.
It comes without any medium; that is the point. It comes without a vehicle! It travels without any
vehicle, that is why it is a jump, that is why it is a leap. If some waves are there and it comes to you through
those waves, then it is not a jump, it is not a leap.
It is a jump from one point to another point, with no interconnection between the two; that is why it is a
jump. If I come to you step by step, it is not a jump; only if I come to you without any steps is it a jump.
And a real jump is even deeper: it means that something exists on point A and then it exists on point B, and
between the two there is no existence. That is a real jump.
Intuition is a jump. It is not something coming to you; that is a linguistic error. It is not something
coming to you: it is something happening to you, not coming to you -- something happening to you without
any causality anywhere, without any source anywhere. This sudden happening means intuition. If it is not
sudden, not completely discontinuous with what went before, then reason will discover the path. It will take
time, but it can be done. If some X-rays, some waves or anything are carrying it to you, reason will be
capable of knowing and understanding and controlling it. Then any day an instrument can be developed --
just like radio or TV -- in which intuitions can be received.
If intuition comes through rays or waves, then we can make an instrument to receive them. Then
Mohammed is not needed. But as I see it, Mohammed will be needed. No instrument can pick up intuition
because it is not a wave phenomenon. It is not a phenomenon at all; it is just a leap from nothing to being.
Intuition means just that. That is why reason denies it. Reason denies it because reason is incapable of
encountering it; reason can only encounter phenomena that can be divided into cause and effect.
According to reason there are two realms of existence: the known and the unknown. And the unknown
means that which is not yet known, but someday will be known. But religion says that there are three
realms: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. By the unknowable religion means that which can
never be known.
Intellect is involved with the known and the unknown, not with the unknowable, and intuition works
with the unknowable, with that which cannot be known. It is not just a question of time before it will be
known; "unknowability" is its intrinsic quality. It is not that your instruments are not fine enough or your
logic not up to date or your mathematics primitive -- that is not the question. The intrinsic quality of the
unknowable is unknowability; it will always exist as the unknowable. This is the realm of intuition.
When something from the unknowable comes to be known, it is a jump. It is a jump! There is no
interlink, there is no passage, there is no going from one point to another point. But it seems inconceivable,
so when I say, "You can feel it, but you cannot understand it," when I say such things, I know very well that
I am uttering nonsense. Nonsense only means "that which cannot be understood by our senses." And mind is
a sense, the most subtle, and wisdom is a sense.
Intuition is possible because the unknowable is there. Science denies the existence of the divine because
it says, "There is only one division: the known and the unknown. If there is any God, we will discover him
through laboratory methods. If he exists, science will discover him."
Religion, on the other hand, says, "Whatever you do, something in the very foundation of existence will
remain unknowable -- a mystery." And if religion is not right then I think that science is going to destroy the
whole meaning of life. If there is no mystery, the whole meaning of life is destroyed and the whole beauty is
destroyed. The unknowable is the beauty, the meaning, the aspiration, the goal. Because of the unknowable,
life means something. When everything is known, then everything is flat. You will be fed up, bored. The
unknowable is the secret; it is life itself.
I will say this: that reason is an effort to know the unknown and intuition is the happening of the
unknowable. To penetrate the unknowable is possible, but to explain it is not. The feeling is possible; the
explanation is not.
The more you try to explain it the more closed you will become, so do not try. Let reason work in its
own field, but remember continuously that there are deeper realms. There are deeper reasons which reason
cannot understand, higher reasons that reason is incapable of conceiving.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #14
Chapter title: Consciousness, Witnessing & Awareness
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF14
Audio: No
Video: No
QUESTION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AWARENESS AND WITNESSING?
There is much difference between awareness and witnessing. Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it,
the ego is there. So the phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object.
Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object. Awareness is absolutely devoid of any
subjectivity or objectivity. There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; there is no one who is being
witnessed. Awareness is a total act, integrated; the subject and the object are not related in it; they are
dissolved. So awareness doesn't mean that anyone is aware, nor does it mean that anything is being attended
to.
Awareness is total -- total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon -- while in
witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is nondoing; witnessing implies a doer.
But through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a conscious act; it is an
act, but conscious. You can do something and be unconscious -- our ordinary activity is unconscious
activity -- but if you become conscious in it, it becomes witnessing. So from ordinary unconscious activity
to awareness there is a gap that can be filled by witnessing.
Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness. It is not awareness, but, as compared to ordinary
activity, unconscious activity, it is a higher step. Something has changed: activity has become conscious,
unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But something more still has to be changed. That is,
the activity has to be replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.
It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a
step in between is helpful. If one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier --
the jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any
conscious activity at all. This doesn't mean that awareness isn't consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but
no one is conscious about it.
There is still a difference between consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is a quality of your
mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you
transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness.
Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the
quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness.
We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness
means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the
mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.
Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind.
Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always
conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel
of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject
and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental.
Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind.
Then what is the relationship between consciousness and witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and
consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you
begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that
surrounds you, then you begin to witness.
Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only
practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a byproduct. The
more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So
consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a
method to achieve awareness.
So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest
rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.
Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness,
and through awareness you can achieve "no achievement." Through awareness you can achieve all that is
already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end.
Awareness is the end of spiritual progress; unawareness is the beginning. Unawareness means a state of
material existence. So unawareness and unconsciousness are not both the same. Unawareness means matter.
Matter is not unconscious; it is unaware.
Animal existence is an unconscious existence; human existence is a mind phenomenon -- ninety-nine
percent unconscious and one percent conscious. This one percent consciousness means you are one percent
conscious of your ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. But if you become conscious of your own
consciousness, then the one percent will go on increasing, and the ninety-nine percent unconsciousness will
go on decreasing.
If you become one hundred percent conscious, you become a witness, a sakshi. If you become a sakshi,
you have come to the jumping point from where the jump into awareness becomes possible. In awareness
you lose the witness and only witnessing remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the
egocentric consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference remains without
the center.
This circumference without the center is awareness. Consciousness without any center, without any
source, without any motivation, without any source from which it comes -- a "no source" consciousness -- is
awareness.
So you move from the unaware existence that is matter, prakriti, towards awareness. You may call it the
divine, the godly, or whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference is always
of consciousness.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #15
Chapter title: The Difference between Satori & Samadhi
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF15
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Video: No
QUESTION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN EXPERIENCE BETWEEN SATORI -- IN ZEN, A GLIMPSE OF
ENLIGHTENMENT -- AND SAMADHI, COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS?
Samadhi begins as a gap, but it never ends. A gap always begins and ends -- it has boundaries: a
beginning and an end -- but samadhi begins as a gap and then is everlasting. There is no end to it. So if the
happening comes as a gap and there is no end, it is samadhi, but if it is a complete gap -- with a beginning
and an end -- then it is satori, and that is different. If it is just a glimpse, just a gap, and the gap is again lost,
if something is bracketed and the bracket is complete -- you peep into it and come back, you jump into it
and come back -- if something happens and it is again lost, it is satori. It is a glimpse, a glimpse of samadhi,
but not samadhi.
Samadhi means the beginning of knowing, without any end.
In India we have no word that corresponds to satori, so sometimes, when the gap is great, one can
misunderstand satori as samadhi. But it never is; it is just a glimpse. You have come to the cosmic and
looked into it, and then everything is gone again. Of course, you will not be the same; now you will never
be the same again. Something has penetrated into you, something has been added to you, you can never be
the same again. But still, that which has changed you is not with you. It is just a remembrance, a memory. It
is only a glimpse.
If you can remember it -- if you can say, "I have known the moment" -- it is only a glimpse, because the
moment samadhi has happened, you will not be there to remember it. Then you can never say, "I have
known it," because with the knowing the knower is lost. Only with the glimpse the knower remains.
So the knower can keep this glimpse as a memory -- he can cherish it, long for it, desire it, again
endeavor to experience it -- but he is still there. The one who has had a glimpse, the one who has looked is
there. It has become a memory; and now this memory will haunt you, will follow you, and will demand the
phenomenon again and again.
The moment samadhi has happened, you are not there to remember it. Samadhi never becomes a part of
memory because the one who was is no more. As they say in zen, "The old man is no more and the new one
has come..." and these two have never met, so there is no possibility of there being any memory. The old
has gone and the new has come, and there has been no meeting between the two, because the new can come
only when the old has gone. Then it is not a memory; there is no haunting and no hankering after it, there is
no longing for it. Then, as you are, you are at ease and there is nothing to desire.
It is not that you have killed the desire -- no! It is desirelessness in the sense that the one who could
desire is no more. It is not a state of no desire; it is desirelessness, because the one who could desire is no
more. Then there is no longing, there is no future, because the future is created through our longings; it is a
projection of our desires.
If there is no desire, there is no future. And if there is no future, there is no need of the past, because the
past is always a background against which, or through which, the future is longed for.
If there is no future, if you know that this very moment you are going to die, there is no need to
remember the past. Then there is no need to even remember your name, because the name has a meaning
only if there is a future. It may be needed; but if there is no future, you just burn all your bridges of the past.
There is no need of them; the past has become absolutely meaningless. It is only against the future or for the
future that the past is meaningful.
The moment samadhi has happened, the future becomes nonexistential. It is not; only the present
moment is. It is the only time, there is not even any past. The past has dropped and the future also, and a
single, momentary existence becomes the total existence. You are in it, but not as an entity that is different
from it. You cannot be different because you only become different from the total existence due to your past
or your future. The past and future crystallized around you is the only barrier between you and the present
moment that is happening. So when samadhi happens there is no past and no future. Then it is not that you
are in the present, but you are the present, you become the present.
Samadhi is not a glimpse, samadhi is a death. But satori is a glimpse, not a death. And satori is possible
through so many ways. An aesthetic experience can be a possible source for satori; music can be a possible
source for satori; love can be a possible source for satori. In any intense moment in which the past becomes
meaningless, in any intense moment when you are existing in the present -- a moment of either love or
music or poetic feeling, or of any aesthetic phenomenon in which the past doesn't interfere, in which there is
no desire for the future -- satori becomes possible. But this is just a glimpse. This glimpse is meaningful,
because through satori you can feel for the first time what samadhi can mean. The first taste, or the first
distinct perfume of samadhi, comes through satori.
So satori is helpful; but anything that is helpful can be a hindrance if you cling to it and you feel that it is
everything. Satori has a bliss that can fool you; it has a bliss of its own. Because you have not known
samadhi, this is the ultimate that comes to you, and you cling to it. But if you cling to it, you can change that
which was helpful, that which was friendly, into something that becomes a barrier and an enemy. So one
must be aware of the possible danger of satori. If you are aware of this, then the experience of satori will be
helpful.
A single, momentary glimpse is something that can never be known by any other means. No one can
explain it; no words, no communication, can even be a hint to it. Satori is meaningful, but just as a glimpse,
as a breakthrough, as a single, momentary breakthrough into the existence, into the abyss. You have not
even known the moment, you have not even become aware of it before it becomes closed to you. Just a click
of the camera -- a click, and everything is lost. Then a hankering will be created; you will risk everything
for that moment. But do not long for it, do not desire it; let it sleep in the memory. Do not make a problem
out of it; just forget it. If you can forget it and do not cling to it, these moments will come to you more and
more, the glimpses will be coming to you more and more.
A demanding mind becomes closed, and the glimpse is shut off. It always comes when you are not
aware of it, when you are not looking for it -- when you are relaxed, when you are not even thinking about
it, when you are not even meditating. Even when you are meditating the glimpse becomes impossible, but
when you are not meditating, when you are just in a moment of let-go -- not even doing anything, not even
waiting for anything -- in that relaxed moment, satori happens.
It will begin to happen more and more, but do not think about it; do not long for it. And never mistake it
for samadhi.
QUESTION: WHAT KIND OF PREPARATIONS ARE NECESSARY TO EXPERIENCE SATORI?
Satori becomes possible for a great number of people, because sometimes it needs no preparations;
sometimes it happens by chance. The situation is created, but unknowingly. There are so many people who
have known it. They may not know it as satori, may not have interpreted it as satori, but they have known it.
A great surging love can create it.
Even through chemical drugs, satori is possible. It is possible through mescaline, LSD, marijuana,
because through a chemical change the mind can expand enough so that there is a glimpse. After all, all of
us have chemical bodies -- the mind and the body are chemical units -- so through chemistry, too, the
glimpse can be possible.
Sometimes a sudden danger can penetrate you so much that the glimpse becomes possible; sometimes a
great shock can bring you so much into the moment that the glimpse becomes possible. And for those who
have some aesthetic sensibility, who have a poetic heart, who have a feeling attitude toward reality, not an
intellectual attitude, the glimpse can be possible.
For a rational, logical, intellectual personality, the glimpse is impossible. Sometimes it can happen to an
intellectual person, but only through some intense, intellectual tension -- when suddenly the tension is
relaxed. It happened for Archimedes. He was in satori when he came out into the street naked from his
bathtub, and began to cry, "Eureka, I've found it!" It was a sudden release of the constant tension he had
concerning a problem. The problem was solved, so the tension that existed because of the problem was
suddenly completely released. He ran out naked into the streets and cried, "Eureka, I've found it!"
For an intellectual person, if a great problem that has demanded his total mind and brought him to the
peak of intellectual tension is suddenly solved, it can bring him to a moment of satori. But for aesthetic
minds it is easier.
QUESTION: YOU MEAN EVEN INTELLECTUAL TENSION CAN BE A WAY TO ACHIEVE SATORI?
It may be, it may not be. If you become intellectually tense during this discussion and the tension is not
brought to the extreme, it will be a hindrance. But if you become totally tense and then suddenly something
is understood, that understanding will be a release and satori can happen.
Or, if this discussion is not at all tense, if we are just chitchatting -- totally relaxed, totally nonserious --
even this discussion can be an aesthetic experience. It is not only that flowers are aesthetic; even words can
be. It is not only that trees are aesthetic; human beings can also be. It is not only when you are watching
clouds floating by that satori becomes possible; even if you participate in a dialogue it becomes possible.
But either a relaxed participation is needed or a very tense participation. You can either be relaxed to begin
with or relaxation can come to you because your tension has been brought to a peak and then released.
When either happens, even a dialogue, a discussion, can become a source of satori. Anything can become a
source of satori; it depends on you. It never depends on anything else. You are just passing through a street:
a child is laughing and satori can happen.
There is a haiku that tells a story something like this: a monk is crossing a street and a very ordinary
flower is peeking out from a wall -- a very ordinary flower, a day-to-day flower, which is everywhere. He
looks at it. It is the first time he has ever really looked at it, because it is so ordinary, so obvious. It is always
to be found somewhere, so he never bothered to really look at it before. He looks into it -- and satori
happens.
An ordinary flower is never looked at. It is so common that you forget it. So the monk has never really
seen this flower before. For the first time in his life he has seen it, and the event became phenomenal. This
first meeting with the flower, with this very ordinary flower, becomes unique. Now he feels sorry for it. It
has always been there waiting for him, but he has never looked at it. He feels sorry for it, asks its pardon...
and the thing happens.
The flower is there, and the monk is standing there dancing. Someone asks, "What are you doing?"
He says, "I have seen something uncommon in a very common flower. The flower was always waiting; I
never looked at it before -- but today a meeting has happened." The flower is not common now. The monk
has penetrated into it, and the flower has penetrated into the monk.
An ordinary thing, even a pebble, can be a source. For a child a pebble is a source, but for us it is not a
source because it has become so familiar. Anything uncommon, anything rare, anything that has come into
your sight for the first time, can be a source for satori, and if you are available -- if you are there, if your
presence is there -- the phenomenon can happen.
Satori happens to almost everyone. It may not be interpreted as such, you may not have known it to be
satori, but it happens. And this happening is the cause of all spiritual seeking; otherwise spiritual seeking
would not be possible. How can you be in search of something of which you have not even had a glimpse?
First something must have come to you, some ray must have come to you -- a touch, a breeze -- something
must have come to you that has become the quest.
A spiritual quest is only possible if something has happened to you without your knowing. It may be in
love, it may be in music, it may be in nature, it may be in friendship -- it may be in any communion.
Something has happened to you that has been a source of bliss and it is now just a remembering, a memory.
It may not even be a conscious memory; it may be unconscious. It may be waiting like a seed somewhere
deep within you. This seed will become the source of a quest, and you will go on searching for something
that you do not know. What are you searching for? You do not know. But still, somewhere, even unknown
to you, some experience, some blissful moment, has become part and parcel of your mind. It has become a
seed, and now that seed is working its way through and you are in quest of something which you cannot
name, which you cannot explain.
What are you seeking? If a spiritual person is sincere and honest he cannot say, "I am seeking God,"
because he does not know whether God is or not. And the word god is absolutely meaningless unless you
have known. So you cannot seek God or moksha, liberation -- you cannot. A sincere seeker will have to fall
back upon himself. The seeking is not for something outward, it is for something inward. Somewhere
something is known which has been glimpsed at, which has become the seed, and which is compelling you,
pushing you, toward something unknown.
Spiritual seeking is not a pulling from without; it is a push from within. It is always a push. And if it is a
pull, the seeking is insincere, unauthentic; then it is nothing but a search for a new sort of gratification, a
new turn to your desires. Spiritual seeking is always a push toward something deep inside you of which you
have had a glimpse. You have not interpreted it; you have not known it consciously. It may be a childhood
memory of satori that is deep down in the unconscious. It may be a blissful moment of satori in your
mother's womb, a blissful existence with no worry, with no tension, with a completely relaxed state of mind.
It may be a deep, unconscious feeling, a feeling that you have not known consciously, that is pushing you.
Psychologists agree that the whole concept of spiritual seeking comes from the blissful experience in the
mother's womb. It is so blissful, so dark; there is not even a single ray of tension. With the first glimpse of
light, tension begins to be felt, but the darkness is absolute relaxation. There is no worry, nothing to do. You
do not even have to breathe; your mother breathes for you. You exist exactly as it is interpreted that one
exists when moksha is achieved. Everything just is, and to be is blissful. Nothing has to be done to achieve
this state; it just is.
So it may be that there is a deep, unconscious seed inside you that has experienced total relaxation. It
may be some childhood experience of aesthetic blissfulness, a childhood satori. Every childhood is
satori-full, but we have lost it. Paradise is lost, and Adam is thrown out of paradise. But the remembrance is
there, the unknown remembrance that pushes you on.
Samadhi is different from this. You have not known samadhi, but through satori there is the promise that
something greater is possible. Satori becomes a promise that leads you toward samadhi.
QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO ACHIEVE IT?
You should not do anything. Only one thing: you must be aware, you must not resist; there must not be
any resistance to it. But there is resistance; that is why there is suffering. There is an unconscious resistance.
If something begins to happen to the brahma randhra, it just begins to make ego death come nearer. It seems
so painful that there is inner resistance. This resistance can take two forms: either you will stop doing
meditation or you will ask what can be done to transcend it, to go beyond it.
Nothing should be done. This asking, too, is a sort of resistance. Let it do what it is doing. Just be aware
and accept it totally. Be with it; let it do whatever it is doing, and be cooperative with it.
QUESTION: SHOULD I JUST BE A WITNESS TO IT?
Don't be just a witness, because to be just a witness to this process will create barriers. Do not be a
witness. Be cooperative with it; be one with it. Just cooperate with it, totally surrender to it -- surrender
yourself to it -- and say to it, "Do anything, do whatsoever is needed," and you just be cooperative.
Do not resist it and do not be attentive to it, because even your attention will be a resistance. Just be with
it and let it do whatever is needed. You cannot know what is needed and you cannot plan what is to be done.
You can only surrender to it and let it do whatever is necessary. The brahma randhra has its own wisdom,
every center has its own wisdom, and if we become attentive to it a disturbance will be created.
The moment you become aware of any of the inner workings of your body you create a disturbance
because you create tension. The whole working of the body, the inner working, is unconscious. For
example, once you have taken your food you must not be attentive to it; you must let your body do whatever
it likes. If you become attentive to your stomach, then you will disturb it; the whole working will become
disturbed and the whole stomach will be diseased.
Likewise, when the brahma randhra is working, do not be attentive to it, because your attention will
work against it, you will work against it. You will be face to face with it, and this facing, this encountering,
will be a disturbance; then the process will be unnecessarily prolonged. So starting from tomorrow, just be
with it, move with it, suffer with it, and let it do whatever it wants to do. You must be totally surrendered,
wholly given to it. This surrender is akarma, nonactivity. It is more akarma than being attentive, because
your attention is karma, action; it is an activity.
So just be with whatever is happening. It is not that by being with it you will not be aware, but only that
you will not be attentive. You will be aware and that is different. While being with it there will be
awareness, a diffused awareness. You will be knowing all the time that something is happening, but now
you will be with it, and there will be no contradiction between your awareness and the happening.
QUESTION: WILL MEDITATION LEAD TO SAMADHI?
In the beginning effort will be needed. Unless you are beyond the mind, effort will be needed. Once you
are beyond the mind there is no need of effort, and if it is still needed that means you are not beyond the
mind. A bliss that needs effort is of the mind. A bliss that does not need any effort has become natural, it is
of the being; then it is just like breathing. No effort is needed -- not only no effort, but no alertness is
needed. It continues. Now it is not something added to you; it is you. Then it becomes samadhi.
Dhyan, meditation is effort; samadhi is effortlessness. Meditation is effort; ecstasy is effortlessness.
Then you do not need to do anything about it. That is why I say that unless you come to a point where
meditation becomes useless, you have not achieved the goal. The path must become useless. If you have
achieved the goal, if you have come to the goal, the path is useless.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #16
Chapter title: Sexual Energy & the Awakening of the Kundalini
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF16
Audio: No
Video: No
QUESTION: HOW DOES ONE OVERCOME THE PULL TOWARD SEX SO THAT THE KUNDALINI CAN GO
UPWARD?
Energy has been going downward through the sex center continuously for many births, so when any
energy is created it will first try to move downward. That is why meditation sometimes will create more
sexuality in you than you have ever felt before. You will feel more sexual because you have generated more
energy than you previously had. When you have conserved something, the old, habitual passage is ready to
release it. The mechanism is ready, the old passage is ready. Your mind only knows one passage -- the
lower one, the sexual passage -- so when you are meditating the first movement of your life energy will be
downward. Just be aware of it.
Do not struggle with it; just be aware of it. Be aware of the habitual passage, be aware of sexual images;
let them come. Be aware of them, but do not do anything about the situation; just be aware of it. The sexual
passage cannot operate without your cooperation, but if you cooperate with it even for a single moment, it
can start functioning. So do not cooperate with it: just be aware of it.
The mechanism of sex is so much a momentary phenomenon that it only functions momentarily; if you
do not cooperate at the right moment, it stops. At the right moment your cooperation is needed, otherwise it
cannot work. It is only a momentary mechanism, and if you do not cooperate with it, it will stop by itself.
Time and time again, energy is created through meditation. It continues to move downward, but now
you are aware of it. The old passage is cut -- not suppressed. Energy is there and it needs to be released, but
the lower door is closed: not suppressed -- closed. You have not cooperated with it, that's all. You have not
positively suppressed it, you have only negatively not cooperated with it.
You have just been aware of what is happening to your mind, to your body. You are just aware; then
energy is conserved. Then the quantity of the energy becomes more and more intense and an upward thrust
becomes necessary. Now the energy will go upward; by its very force, a new passage will be thrown open.
When energy goes upward you will be more sexually attractive to others, because life energy going
upward creates a great magnetic force. You will become more sexually attractive to others, so you will have
to be aware of this. Now you will attract persons unknowingly, and the attraction will not only be physical;
the attraction will be etheric.
Even a repulsive body, a nonattractive body, will become attractive with yoga. The attraction is etheric;
and it is so magnetic that one has to be constantly aware of it, constantly aware. You will be attractive... and
the opposite sex will be irresistably drawn to you. There are subtle vibrations that are created by your
etheric body: you have to be aware of them. The type of attraction that will be felt by the opposite sex will
differ -- it will take so many different forms -- but basically it will be sexual. At its root, it will be sexual.
But you can help these people. Even if they are attracted to you sexually, they have become attracted to
a sexual energy that is moving upward. And they too are not ordinary sexual beings: upward-moving sexual
energy has become an attraction, a magnet. So you can help them; if you do not become involved, then you
can help them.
QUESTION: IN THE AWAKENING OF THE KUNDALINI, IN THE OPENING OF THE PASSAGE, ISN'T
THERE AN INCREASE IN SEXUAL POWER?
The increase in sexual power and the opening of the kundalini passage are simultaneous -- not the same,
but simultaneous. The increase in sexual power will be the thrust to open up the higher centers; so sexual
power will increase. If you can be aware of it and not use it sexually -- if you do not allow it to be released
sexually -- it will become so intense that the upward movement will begin.
First the energy will try its best to be released sexually, because that is its usual outlet, its usual center.
So one must first be aware of one's downward "doors." Only awareness will close them; only
noncooperation will close them. Sex is not so forceful as we feel it to be. It is forceful only momentarily: it
is not a twenty-four-hour affair, it is a momentary challenge.
If you can be noncooperative and aware, it goes. And you will feel more happiness than when sexual
energy is released from the downward passage. Conservation of energy is always blissful: wastage of
energy is only a relief, it is not blissful. You have unburdened yourself; you have alleviated something that
was troubling you. Now you have become unburdened, but you have also become emptied.
The feeling of emptiness that is overtaking the whole Western mind is just because of sexual wastage.
Life seems to be empty. Life is never empty, but it seems to be empty because you have been simply
unburdening yourself, just relieving yourself. If something is conserved it becomes a richness: if your
upward door is open and energy goes upward, not only do you feel relieved, not only is the straining point
relieved, but it is not vacant. In a way it is fulfilled; it is overflowing.
The energy has gone upward, but the basic center has not become empty. It is overflowing, and the
overflowing energy goes upward, up toward the brahma randhra. Then, near the brahma randhra, there is
neither an upward movement nor a downward movement. Now the energy goes to the cosmic: it goes to the
all; it goes to the brahman -- the ultimate reality. That is why the seventh chakra is known as the brahma
randhra -- the door to the brahman, the door to the divine. Then there is no "up" and no "down." It will feel
like something is penetrating, thrusting upward -- and a moment will come when one will feel as though that
something is no longer there, that it has gone. Now it is overflowing into the passage.
The petals of the sahasrar are just a symbol for the feelings that occur when energy overflows. The
overflowing is a flowering, just like a flower itself is an overflowing. You will feel that something has
become a flower; the door is open, and it will go outward.
It will not be felt inwardly; it will be felt outwardly. Something has opened like a flower, like a flower
with a thousand petals. It is just a feeling, but the feeling corresponds to the truth. The feeling is a
translation and interpretation. The mind cannot conceive of it, but the feeling is just like a flowering. The
closest, the nearest thing that we can say is that it is like a bud opening. It is felt like that. That is why we
have conceived of the opening of the sahasrar as a thousand-petaled lotus.
So many petals -- so many! And they go on opening, they go on opening... the opening is endless. It is a
fulfillment; it is a flowering of the human being. Then you become just like a tree, and everything that was
in you has flowered.
Then all you can do is to offer this flower to the divine.
We have been offering flowers, but they are broken flowers. Only this flower can be a real offering.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #17
Chapter title: The Manifestations of Prana in the Seven Bodies
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF17
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QUESTION: WHAT IS PRANA AND HOW IS IT MANIFESTED IN EACH OF THE SEVEN BODIES?
Prana is energy -- the living energy in us, the life in us. This life manifests itself, as far as the physical
body is concerned, as the incoming and the outgoing breath. These are two opposite things. We take them as
one. We say "breathing" -- but breathing has two polarities: the incoming breath and the outgoing breath.
Every energy has polarities, every energy exists in two opposite poles. It cannot exist otherwise. The
opposite poles, with their tension and harmony, create energy -- just like magnetic poles.
The incoming breath is quite contrary to the outgoing, and the outgoing is quite contrary to the
incoming. In a single moment the incoming is just like birth and the outgoing is just like death. In a single
moment both things are happening: when you take breath in, you are born; when you throw breath out, you
die. In a single moment there is birth and death. This polarity is life energy coming up, going down.
In the physical body, life energy takes this manifestation. Life energy is born, and after seventy years it
dies. That too is a greater manifestation of the same phenomenon: the incoming breath and the outgoing
breath... the day and the night.
In all of the seven bodies -- the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and
the nirvanic, there will be a corresponding incoming and outgoing phenomenon. As far as the mental body
is concerned, thought coming in and thought going out is the same kind of phenomenon as breath coming in
and breath going out. Every moment a thought comes in your mind and a thought goes out.
Thought itself is energy. In the mental body the energy manifests as the coming of thought and the going
of thought; in the physical body it manifests as breath coming and breath going. That is why you can change
your thinking with breathing. There is a correspondence.
If you stop your breath from coming in, thought will be stopped from coming in. Stop your breath in
your physical body and in the mental body thought will stop. And as the physical body becomes uneasy,
your mental body will become uneasy. The physical body will long to breathe in; the mental body will long
to take thought in.
Just as breath is taken in from the outside and the air exists outside you, likewise an ocean of thought
exists outside you. Thought comes in, and thought goes out. Your breath can become my breath at another
moment and your thought can become my thought. Every time you throw your breath out you are likewise
throwing your thought out. Just as air exists, so thought exists; just as air can be contaminated, so thought
can be contaminated; just as air can be impure, so thought can be impure.
The breath itself is not prana. Prana means the vital energy that manifests itself by these polarities of
coming in and going out. The energy that takes the breath in is prana, not the breath itself. The energy that
takes breath in, which asserts it, that energy that is taking the breath in and throwing it out, is prana.
The energy that takes thought in and throws thought out, that energy too is prana. In all of the seven
bodies, this process exists. I am only talking now of the physical and the mental, because these two are
known to us; we can understand them easily. But in every layer of your being the same thing exists.
Your second body, the etheric body, has its own incoming and outgoing process. You will feel this
process in each of the seven bodies, but you will feel it to be just like the incoming breath and outgoing
breath, because you are only acquainted with your physical body and its prana. Then you will always
misunderstand.
Whenever any feeling comes to you of another body or its prana you will first understand it as the
coming in and the going out of breath, because this is the only experience you know. You have only known
this manifestation of prana, of vital energy. But on the etheric plane there is neither breath nor thought, but
influence -- simply influence coming in and going out.
You come into contact with somebody without having known him before. He has not even talked with
you, but something about him comes in. You have either taken him in or thrown him out. There is a subtle
influence: you may call it love or you may call it hatred -- the attractive or the repulsive.
When you are repulsed or attracted, it is your second body. And every moment the process is going on;
it never stops. You are always taking influences in and then throwing them out. The other pole will always
be there. If you have loved someone, then in a certain moment you will be repulsed. If you have loved
someone the breath has been taken in: now it will be thrown out and you will be repulsed.
So every moment of love will be followed by a moment of repulsion. The vital energy exists in
polarities. It never exists at one pole. It cannot! And whenever you try to make it do so, you try the
impossible.
You cannot love someone without hating him at some time. The hatred will be there because the vital
force cannot exist at a single pole. It exists at opposite polarities, so a friend is bound to be an enemy -- and
this will go on. This coming in and going out will happen up to the seventh body. No body can exist without
this process -- this coming in and going out. It cannot, just as the physical body cannot exist without the
incoming and outgoing breath.
As far as the physical body is concerned, we never take these two things as opposites, so we are not
disturbed about it. Life makes no distinction between the incoming breath and the outgoing breath. There is
no moral distinction. There is nothing to be chosen; both are the same. The phenomenon is natural.
But as far as the second body is concerned, hatred must not be there and love must be there. Then you
have begun to choose. You have begun to choose, and this choice will create disturbances. That is why the
physical body is ordinarily more healthy than the second, the etheric, body. The etheric body is always in
conflict because moral choosing has made a hell out of it.
When love comes to you, you feel a wellbeing, but when hatred comes to you, you feel diseased. But it
is bound to come -- so a person who knows, a person who has understood the polarities, is not disappointed
when it comes. A person who has known the polarities is at ease, at equilibrium. He knows it is bound to
happen, so he neither tries to love when he is not loving nor does he create any hatred. Things come and go:
he is not attracted to the incoming nor repulsed by the outgoing. He is just a witness. He says, "It is just like
breath coming in and breath going out."
The Buddhist meditation method of Anapana-sati Yoga is concerned with this. It says to just be a
witness to your incoming and outgoing breath. Just be a witness, and begin from the physical body. The
other six bodies are not talked about in Anapana-sati because they will come by themselves, by and by.
The more you become acquainted with this polarity -- with this dying and living simultaneously, with
this simultaneous birth and death -- the more you will become aware of the second body. Toward hatred,
then, Buddha says, have upeksha. Be indifferent. Whether it is hatred or it is love, be indifferent. And do not
be attached to anyone, because if you are attached, what will happen to the other pole? Then you will be at a
"dis-ease." Disease will be there; you will not be at ease.
Buddha says, "The coming of the beloved one is welcomed, but the going of the beloved one is wept
over. The meeting with the one who is repulsive is a misery, and the departing of a repulsive one is bliss.
But if you go on dividing yourself into these polarities, you will be in hell, living in a hell."
If you just become a witness to these polarities, then you say, "This is a natural phenomenon. It is
natural to the 'body' concerned" -- that is, one of the seven bodies. "The body exists because of this;
otherwise, it cannot exist." And the moment you become aware of it, you transcend the body. If you
transcend your first body, then you become aware of the second. If you transcend your second body, then
you become aware of the third....
Witnessing is always beyond life and death. The breath coming in and the breath going out are two
things, and if you become a witness, then you are neither. Then a third force has come into being. Now you
are not the manifestations of prana in the physical body: now you are the prana, the witness. Now you see
that life manifests on the physical level because of this polarity, and if this polarity stops the physical body
will not be there, it cannot exist. It needs tension to exist -- this constant tension of coming and going, this
constant tension of birth and death. It exists because of this. Every moment it moves between the two poles;
otherwise, it would not exist.
In the second body, "love and hate" is the basic polarity. It is manifested in so many ways. The basic
polarity is this liking and disliking, and every moment your liking becomes disliking and your disliking
becomes liking -- every moment! But you never see it. When your liking becomes disliking, if you suppress
your disliking and continue fooling yourself that you will go on liking the same things always, you are only
fooling yourself doubly. And if you dislike something, you go on disliking it, never allowing yourself to see
the moments when you have liked it. We suppress our love for our enemies, and we suppress our hatred for
our friends. We are suppressing! We allow only one movement, only one pole, but because it comes back
again, we are at ease. It returns, so we are at ease. But it is discontinuous; it is never continuous. It never can
be.
The vital force manifests itself as like and dislike in the second body. But it is just like breath: there is
no difference. Influence is the medium here; air is the medium in the physical body. The second body lives
in an atmosphere of influences. It is not simply that someone comes in contact with you and you begin to
like him. Even if no one comes in and you are alone in the room, you will be liking/disliking,
liking/disliking. It will make no difference: the liking and disliking will go on alternating continuously.
It is through this polarity that the etheric body exists; it is its breath. If you become a witness to it, then
you can just laugh. Then there is no enemy and no friend. Then you know it is just a natural phenomenon.
If you become aware and become a witness to the second body -- to the liking and disliking -- then you
can know the third body. The third is the astral body. Just like the "influences" of the etheric body, the astral
body has "magnetic forces." Its magnetism is its breath. One moment you are powerful and the next moment
you are powerless; one moment you are hopeful and the next moment you are hopeless; one moment you
are confident and the next moment you lose all your confidence. It is a coming in of magnetism to you and a
going out of magnetism from you. There are moments when you can defy even God, and there are moments
when you fear even a shadow.
When the magnetic force is in you, when it is coming into you, you are great; when it has gone from
you, you are just a nobody. And this is changing back and forth, just like day and night; the circle revolves,
the wheel revolves. So even a person like Napoleon had his impotent moments and even a very cowardly
person has his moments of bravery.
In judo there is a technique to know when a person is powerless. That is the moment to attack him.
When he is powerful you are bound to be defeated, so you have to know the moment when his magnetic
power is going out and attack him then, and you should incite him to attack you when your magnetic force
is coming in.
This coming in and going out of the magnetic force corresponds to your breathing. That is why, when
you have to do something difficult, you will hold your breath in. For example, if you are to lift a heavy
stone, you cannot pick it up when the breath is going out. You cannot do it! But when the breath is coming
in, or when the breath is held in, you can do it. Your breath corresponds to what is happening in the third
body. So when the breath is going out -- unless the person has been trained to fool you -- that is the moment
when his magnetic force is going out; that is the moment to attack. And this is the secret of judo. Even a
stronger person than you can be defeated if you know the secret of when he is fearful and powerless. When
the magnetic force is out of him, he is bound to be powerless.
The third body lives in a magnetic sphere, just like air. There are magnetic forces all around: you are
breathing them in and breathing them out. But if you become aware of this magnetic force that is coming
and going, then you are neither powerful nor powerless. You transcend both.
Then there is the fourth body, the mental body: thought pulling in and thought pulling out. But this
"thought coming in" and "thought going out" has parallels, too. When thought comes to you while you
breathe in, only in those moments is original thinking born. When you breathe out, those are moments of
impotency; no original thought can be born in those moments. In moments when some original thought is
there, the breathing will even stop. When some original thought is born, then the breath stops. It is only a
corresponding phenomenon.
In the outgoing thought, nothing is born. It is simply dead. But if you become aware of thoughts coming
in and thoughts going out, then you can know the fifth body.
Up to the fourth body things are not difficult to understand, because we have some experience which
can become the basis to understand them. Beyond the fourth, things become very strange -- but still,
something can be understood. And when you transcend the fourth body you will understand it more.
In the fifth body... how to say it? The atmosphere for the fifth body is life -- just as thought, as breath, as
magnetic force, as love and hatred, are atmospheres for the lower bodies.
For the fifth body, life itself is the atmosphere. So in the fifth, the coming in is a moment of life, and the
going out is a moment of death. With the fifth, you become aware that life is not something that is in you. It
comes into you and goes out from you. Life itself is not in you; it simply comes in and goes out just like
breath.
That is why breath and prana became synonymous -- because of the fifth body. In the fifth body, the
word prana is meaningful. It is life that is coming and life that is going. And that is why the fear of death is
constantly following us. You are always aware that death is nearby, waiting at the corner. It is always there,
waiting. This feeling of death always waiting for you -- this feeling of insecurity, of death, of darkness -- is
concerned with the fifth body. It is a very dark feeling, very vague, because you are not completely aware of
it.
When you come to the fifth body and become aware of it, then you know that life and death both are just
breaths to the fifth body -- coming in and going out. And when you become aware of this, then you know
that you cannot die, because death is not an inherent phenomenon; nor is life. Both life and death are
outward phenomena happening to you. You never have been alive, you never have been dead; you are
something that completely transcends both. But this feeling of transcendence can only come when you
become aware of the life force and the death force in the fifth body.
Freud said somewhere that he somehow had a glimpse of this. He was not an adept in yoga, otherwise
he would have understood it. He called it "the will to die," and he said every man sometimes is longing for
life and sometimes is longing for death. There are two opposing wills in men: a will to live and a will to die.
To the Western mind it was absolutely absurd: how could these contradictory wills exist in one person? But
Freud said that because suicide is possible, there must be a will to die.
No animal can commit suicide, because no animal can become aware of the fifth body. Animals cannot
commit suicide because they cannot become aware, they cannot know, that they are alive. To commit
suicide, one thing is necessary: to be aware of life -- and they are not aware of life. But another thing is also
necessary: to commit suicide you must also be unaware of death.
Animals cannot commit suicide because animals are not aware of life, but we can commit suicide
because we are aware of life but not aware of death. If one becomes aware of death, then one cannot commit
suicide. A buddha cannot commit suicide because it is unnecessary; it is nonsense. He knows that you
cannot really kill yourself, you can only pretend to. Suicide is just a pose, because really you are neither
alive nor dead.
Death is on the fifth plane, in the fifth body. It is a going out of a particular energy and a coming in of a
particular energy. You are the one in which this coming and going happens. If you become identified with
the first, you can commit the second. If you become identified with living, and if life becomes impossible,
you can say, "I will commit suicide." This is the other aspect of your fifth body asserting itself. There is not
a single human being who has not thought at some time to commit suicide... because death is the other side
of life. This other side can become either suicide or murder: it can become either.
If you are obsessed with life, if you are so attached to it that you want to deny death completely, you can
kill another. By killing another you satisfy your death wish: "the will to die." By this trick you satisfy it, and
you think that now you will not have to die because someone else has died.
All those persons who have committed great murders -- Hitler, Mussolini -- are still very much afraid of
death. They are always in fear of death, so they project this death on others. The person who can kill
someone else feels that he is more powerful than death: he can kill others. In a "magical way," with a
"magical formula," he thinks that because he can kill he transcends death, that a thing he can do to others
cannot be done to him. This is a projection of death, but it can come back to you. If you kill so many
persons that in the end you commit suicide, it is the projection coming back to you.
In the fifth body, with life and death coming to you -- with life coming and going -- one cannot be
attached to anyone. If you are attached, you are not accepting the polarity in its totality, and you will
become ill.
Up to the fourth body it was not so difficult, but to conceive of death and to accept it as another aspect
of life is the most difficult act. To conceive of life and death as parallel -- as just the same, as two aspects of
one thing -- is the most difficult act. But in the fifth, this is the polarity. This is pranic existence in the fifth.
With the sixth body, things become even more difficult, because the sixth is no longer life. For the sixth
body... what to say? After the fifth, the "I" drops, the ego drops. Then there is no ego; you become one with
the all. Now it is not your "anything" that comes in and goes out because the ego is not. Everything becomes
cosmic, and because it becomes cosmic, the polarity takes the form of creation and destruction -- srishti and
pralaya. That is why it becomes more difficult with the sixth: the atmosphere is "the creative force and the
destructive force." In Hindu mythology they call these forces Brahma and Shiva.
Brahma is the deity of creation, Vishnu is the deity of maintenance, and Shiva is the deity of the great
death -- of destruction or dissolution, where everything goes back to its original source. The sixth body is in
that vast sphere of creativity and destructivity: the force of Brahma and the force of Shiva.
Every moment the creation comes to you, and every moment everything goes into dissolution. So when
a yogi says, "I have seen the creation, and I have seen the pralaya, the end; I have seen the coming of the
world into being and I have seen the returning of the world into nonbeing," he is talking about the sixth
body. The ego is not there: everything that is coming in and going out is you. You become one with it.
A star is being born: it is your birth that is coming. And the star is going out: that is your going out. So
they say in Hindu mythology that one creation is one breath of Brahma -- only one breath! It is the cosmic
force breathing. When he, Brahma, breathes in, the creation comes into existence: a star is born, stars come
out of chaos -- everything comes into existence. And when his breath goes out, everything goes out,
everything ceases: a star dies... existence moves into nonexistence.
That is why I am saying that in the sixth body it is very difficult. The sixth is not egocentric; it becomes
cosmic. And in the sixth body, everything about creation is known -- everything that all of the religions of
the world talk about. When one talks about creation, he is talking about the sixth body and the knowledge
concerned with it. And when one is talking of the great flood, the end, one is talking about the sixth body.
With the great flood of Judeo-Christian or Babylonian mythology, or Syrian mythology, or with the
pralaya of the Hindus, there is one out breath -- that of the sixth body. This is a cosmic experience, not an
individual one. This is a cosmic experience; you are not there!
The person who is in the sixth body -- who has reached to the sixth body -- will see everything that is
dying as his own death. A Mahavira cannot kill an ant, not because of any principle of nonviolence, but
because it is his death. Everything that dies is his death.
When you become aware of this, of the creation and the destruction -- of things coming into existence
every moment and things going out of existence every moment -- the awareness is of the sixth body.
Whenever a thing is going out of existence, something else is coming in: a sun is dying, another is being
born somewhere else; this earth will die, another earth will come. We become attached even in the sixth
body. "Humanity must not die!" -- but everything that is born must die, even humanity must die. Hydrogen
bombs will be created to destroy it. And the moment we create hydrogen bombs, the very next moment we
create a longing to go to another planet, because the bomb means that the earth is near its death. Before this
earth dies, life will begin to evolve somewhere else.
The sixth body is the feeling of cosmic creation and destruction -- creation/destruction... the breath
coming in/the breath going out. That is why "Brahma's breath" is used. Brahma is a sixth-body personality;
you become Brahma in the sixth body. Really, you become aware of both Brahma and Shiva, the two
polarities. And Vishnu is beyond the polarity. They form the trimurti, the trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, and
Mahesh -- or Shiva.
This trinity is the trinity of witnessing. If you become aware of the Brahma and Shiva, the creator and
the destroyer -- if you become aware of those two, then you know the third, which is Vishnu. Vishnu is your
reality in the sixth body. That is why Vishnu became the most prominent of the three. Brahma is
remembered, but although he is the god of creation, he is worshipped in perhaps only one or two temples.
He must be worshipped, but he is not really worshipped.
Shiva is worshipped even more than Vishnu, because we fear death. The worship of him comes out of
our fear of death. But hardly anyone worships Brahma, the god of creation, because there is nothing to be
fearful of; you are already created, so you are not concerned with Brahma. That is why not a single great
temple is dedicated to him. He is the creator, so every temple should be dedicated to him, but it is not.
Shiva has the greatest number of worshippers. He is everywhere, because so many temples were made
as a dedication to him. Just a stone is enough to symbolize him; otherwise it would have been impossible to
create so many idols of him. So just a stone is enough.... Just put a stone somewhere and Shiva is there.
Because the mind is so fearful of death, you cannot escape from Shiva; he must be worshipped -- and he has
been worshipped.
But Vishnu is the more substantial divinity. That is why Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, Krishna is an
incarnation of Vishnu, every avatar -- divine incarnation -- is an incarnation of Vishnu. And even Brahma
and Shiva worship Vishnu. Brahma may be the creator, but he creates for Vishnu; Shiva may be the
destroyer, but he destroys for Vishnu. These are the two breaths of Vishnu, the incoming and the outgoing:
Brahma is the incoming breath and Shiva is the outgoing one. And Vishnu is the reality in the sixth body.
In the seventh body things become even more difficult. Buddha called the seventh body the nirvana
kaya, the body of enlightenment, because the truth, the absolute, is in the seventh body. The seventh body is
the last body, so there is not even creation and destruction but, rather, being and nonbeing. In the seventh,
creation is always of something else, it is not of you. Creation will be of something else and destruction will
be of something else, not of you, while being is of you, and nonbeing is of you.
In the seventh body, being and nonbeing -- existence and nonexistence -- are the two breaths. One
should not be identified with either. All religions are started by those who have reached the seventh body;
and at the end language can be stretched, at the most, to two words: being and nonbeing. Buddha speaks the
language of nonbeing, of the outgoing breath, so he says, "Nothingness is the reality"; while Shankara
speaks the language of being and says that the Brahman is the ultimate reality. Shankara uses positive terms
because he chooses the incoming breath, and Buddha uses negative terms because he chooses the outgoing
breath. But these are the only choices as far as language is concerned.
The third choice is the reality, which cannot be said. At the most we can say "absolute being" or
"absolute nonbeing." This much can be said, because the seventh body is beyond this. Transcendence is still
possible.
I can say something about this room if I go out. If I transcend this room and reach another room, I can
recollect this one, I can say something about it. But if I go out of this room and fall into an abyss, then I
cannot say anything about even this room. So far, with each body, a third point could be caught into words,
symbolized, because the body beyond it was there. You could go there and look backward. But only up to
the seventh is this possible. Beyond the seventh body nothing can be said, because the seventh is the last
body; beyond it is "bodilessness."
With the seventh, one has to choose being or nonbeing -- either the language of negation or the language
of positivity. And there are only two choices. One is Buddha's choice: he says, "Nothing remains," and the
other is Shankara's choice: he says, "Everything remains."
In the seven dimensions -- in the seven bodies -- as far as man is concerned and as far as the world is
concerned, life energy manifests into multidimensional realms. Everywhere, wherever life is to be found,
the incoming and the outgoing process will be there. Wherever life is, the process will be. Life cannot exist
without this polarity.
So prana is energy, cosmic energy, and our first acquaintance with it is in the physical body. It manifests
first as breath, and then it goes on manifesting as breath in other forms: influences, magnetism, thoughts,
life, creation, being. It goes on, and if one becomes aware of it, one always transcends it to reach to a third
point. The moment you reach this third point, you transcend that body and enter the next body. You enter
the second body from the first, and so on.
If you go on transcending, up to the seventh there is still a body, but beyond the seventh there is
bodilessness. Then you become pure. Then you are not divided; then there are no more polarities. Then it is
adwait, not two: then it is oneness.
Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter #18
Chapter title: Traditional Techniques
Archive code: 7000000
ShortTitle: ARTOF18
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ANAPANA-SATI YOGA
A flower that has never known the sun and a flower that has encountered the sun are not the same. They
cannot be. A flower that has never known the sunrise has never known the sun to rise within itself. It is
dead; it is just a potentiality. It has never known its own spirit. But a flower that has seen the sun rise has
also seen something arise within itself. It has known its own soul. Now the flower is not just a flower; it has
known a deep, stirring innerness.
How can we create this innerness within ourselves? Buddha invented a method, one of the most
powerful methods, for creating an inner sun of awareness. And not only for creating it: the method is such
that it not only creates this inner awareness but simultaneously allows the awareness to penetrate to the very
cells of the body, to the whole of one's being. The method that Buddha used is known as Anapana-sati Yoga
-- the yoga of incoming and outgoing breath awareness.
We are breathing, but it is unconscious breathing. Breath is prana, breath is the elan vital -- the vitality,
the very life -- and yet it is unconscious; you are not aware of it. And if you had to be aware of breathing in
order to breathe, you would die. Sooner or later you would forget: you cannot continuously remember
anything.
Breathing is a link between our voluntary and our involuntary systems. We can control our breathing to
a certain extent, we can even stop our breathing for a while, but we cannot stop it permanently. It goes on
without us; it does not depend on us. Even if you are in a coma for months, you will go on breathing; it is an
unconscious mechanism.
Buddha used breath as a vehicle to do two things simultaneously: one, to create consciousness, and
another, to allow that consciousness to penetrate to the very cells of the body. He said, "Breathe
consciously." This does not mean to do pranayama -- yogic breathing; it is just to make breath an object of
awareness, without changing it.
There is no need to change your breath. Leave it as it is, natural; do not change it. But when you breathe
in, breathe consciously; let your consciousness move with the ingoing breath. And when the breath goes
out, let your consciousness move out with it.
Move with the breath. Let your attention be with the breath; flow with it. Do not forget even a single
breath. Buddha is reported to have said that if you can be aware of your breath for even a single hour, you
are already enlightened. But not a single breath should be missed.
One hour is enough. It looks like such a small fragment of time, but it is not. When you are trying to be
aware, an hour can seem like a millennium, because ordinarily you cannot be aware for more than five or
six seconds. Only a very alert person can be aware for even that long. Most of us miss every second. You
may start by being aware as the breath is going in, but no sooner has it gone in when you are somewhere
else. Suddenly you remember that the breath is going out. It has already gone out, but you were somewhere
else.
To be conscious of the breath means that no thoughts can be allowed, because thoughts will distract
your attention. Buddha never says, "Stop thinking." He says, "Breathe consciously." Automatically,
thinking will stop; you cannot both think and breathe consciously. When a thought comes into your mind,
your attention is withdrawn from the breathing. A single thought and you have become unconscious of the
breathing process.
Buddha used this technique. It is a simple one, but a very vital one. He would say to his bhikkhus, his
monks, "Do whatsoever you are doing, but do not forget a simple thing: remember the incoming and the
outgoing breath. Move with it, flow with it."
The more you try to do it, the more you endeavor to do it, the more conscious you will become. It is
arduous, it is difficult, but once you can do it, you will have become a different person, a different being in a
different world.
This works in another way, too. When you consciously breathe in and out, by and by you come to your
center, because your breath touches the very center of your being. Every moment that the breath goes in, it
touches the center of your being.
Physiologically you think that breath is just for the purification of the blood, that it is just a bodily
function. But if you begin to be aware of your breath, by and by you will go deeper than physiology. Then
one day you will begin to feel your center, right near your navel.
This center can be felt only if you move with the breath continuously, because the nearer you reach to
the center, the more difficult it will be to remain aware. You can start when the breath is going in. When it
is just entering your nose, begin to be aware of it. The more inward it moves, the more difficult awareness
will become. A thought will come, or some sound, or something will happen, and you will move away.
If you can go to the very center, for a brief moment breath stops and there is a gap. The breath goes in,
the breath goes out: between the two there is a subtle gap. That gap is your center.
Only after practicing breath awareness for a long time -- when you are finally able to remain with the
breath, to be aware of the breath -- will you become aware of the gap when there is no movement of breath;
breath is neither coming in nor going out. In the subtle gap between breaths, you are at your center. So
breath awareness was used by Buddha as a means of coming nearer and nearer to the center.
When you breathe out, remain conscious of the breath. Again there is a gap. There are two gaps: one gap
after the breath has come in and before it goes out again, and another gap after the breath has gone out and
before it comes in again. This second gap is more difficult to be aware of.
Between the incoming breath and the outgoing breath is your center. But there is another center, the
cosmic center. You may call it "god." In the gap between when the breath goes out and when it comes in is
the cosmic center. These two centers are not two different things. First you will become aware of your inner
center, and then you will become aware of the outer center. Ultimately, you will come to know that both
these centers are one. Then "out" and "in" will lose their meaning.
Buddha says, "Move consciously with the breath and you will create a center of awareness within you."
Once this center is created, awareness begins to move to your very cells, because every cell needs oxygen,
every cell breathes, so to speak.
Now scientists say that even the earth breathes. When the whole universe is breathing in, it expands;
when the whole universe breathes out, it contracts. In old Hindu mythological scriptures, puranas, it is said
that creation is Brahma's one breath -- incoming breath -- and destruction, pralaya, the end of the world,
will be the outgoing breath. One breath is one creation.
In a very miniature way, in a very atomic way, the same thing is happening in you. And when your
awareness becomes one with breathing, breathing takes your awareness to your very cells. Then your whole
body becomes the universe. Really, then you have no material body at all. You are just awareness.
TWENTY-ONE-DAY EXPERIMENT IN SILENCE AND SECLUSION
It is helpful to practice breath awareness for twenty-one days in total seclusion and silence. Then, much
will happen.
During the twenty-one-day experiment, practice Dynamic Meditation once a day and constant
awareness of breathing for twenty-four hours a day. Do not read, do not write, do not think, because all
these acts are of the mental body; they are not concerned with the etheric body.
You can go for a walk. This helps because walking is part of the etheric body; all manual actions are
concerned with the prana sharira, the etheric body. The physical body does these things, but it is for the
etheric body. Everything concerned with the etheric body should be done, and everything concerned with
another body must not be done. You can also have a bath once or twice a day; it is concerned with the
etheric body.
When you go for a walk, just walk. Do not do anything else; just be concerned with your walking. And
while walking, keep your eyes half-closed. Half-closed eyes cannot see anything other than the path, and the
path itself is so monotonous that it will not give you something new to think about.
You must remain in a monotonous world, just in one room, seeing the same floor. It must be so
monotonous that you cannot think about it. Thinking needs stimuli; thinking needs new sensations. If your
sensory system is constantly bored, there will be nothing outside of you to think about.
During the first week you may feel less need of sleep. Do not be concerned about it. Because you are not
thinking, because you are not doing many of the things that you ordinarily do, you will need less sleep. And
if you are constantly aware of your breathing, so much energy will be generated in you, you will become so
vital, that you will not feel sleepy. So if sleep comes it is alright; if it doesn't come it is alright. If you do not
sleep it will not be harmful.
There are many reasons why awareness of breath will create more energy in you. First, when you watch
the breathing, the breathing becomes rhythmic. It will follow its own rhythm. A harmony will be created
and the whole of the being will become musical. This "rhythmic-ness," this rhythm, conserves energy.
Ordinarily our breathing is not rhythmic; it is haphazard. This causes an unnecessary leakage of energy.
Rhythm, harmony, creates a storage of energy. And because you are constantly aware, breath awareness
itself begins to take only a minimal amount of energy. You are not doing anything; it is a nondoing. You are
just aware.
The moment you begin to do something, even to think, doing has come in. Now energy will be wasted.
If you move your body, doing has come in; energy will be wasted. Twenty-four hours of constant awareness
means a minimal wastage of energy, so energy is conserved; you become a storehouse of energy. This
energy will be used in kundalini.
Ordinarily, so much energy is wasted during the day that there is not enough energy left to raise
kundalini. Not much energy is needed in order for the energy to move downward, but to raise energy
upward you need a great storage of energy. Only then can the gates open upward; otherwise not. So those
who have little energy left only have sex as an outlet for it.
We usually think of a sexual person as being very vital, but that is not so. A very vital person is not
sexual, because when energy is overflowing it moves upward. Sexuality requires energy, but only a very
small quantity of it. When there is very little energy it cannot move upward; then moving down, toward the
sex center, is the only possibility.
Energy needs to move continually. It cannot be static; it must move. If it cannot move upward, it will
move downward; there is no choice then. But if it can move upward, then the downward passage will
eventually stop by itself. It is not that you will stop energy from being released through the sex center, but it
will stop by itself because the energy is moving upward.
If you are constantly watching your breath, all doing stops and energy is conserved. But there is another
point to be made, and that is that the very observation -- the awareness, the alertness -- also helps the life
force to become more vital within you. It is as if someone is watching you. If someone is watching you, you
become more vital; laziness disappears.
That is why leaders feel vital. The crowd is always there to observe, and the very observation makes
them vital. The moment the crowd has forgotten them -- no sooner are they forgotten than they are dead.
The happiness of being a leader, of being a public man, a crowd-watched personality, is because of the
feeling of vitality that comes through people's observation. The vitality does not come because of the
observation itself, but because, with so many people observing you, you become more alert about yourself.
And this alertness becomes vitality.
So when you become aware of your breathing, when you begin to observe yourself, the innermost
source of vitality is touched. Therefore, if sleep is lost, do not become anxious about it. It is natural.
If there are upheavals in your mind -- if things come to your mind which you have never thought about
before -- images, stories -- then, too, do not become anxious; just watch them. So much that is in the
unconscious is being released; before it is thrown out, it must come to the conscious mind. If you suppress
these things they will become unconscious again. On the other hand, if you are too concerned with them you
will waste unnecessary energy. So just go on watching your breath, and at the periphery, in the background,
go on watching indifferently everything that happens.
Just be indifferent to these things. Do not be concerned at all; just go on witnessing your breathing. You
will be witnessing your breathing, but on the periphery things will be happening. Thoughts will be there,
vibrations will be there, but only on the periphery -- not at the center. At the center you are just watching
your breath.
So much will come to you: things that are absurd, illogical, unimaginable, inconceivable, fantastic,
nightmarish. You must go on watching your breath. Let these things come and go; just be indifferent to
them. It is as if you are going for a walk. The street is full of people. They pass by, but you are indifferent to
them; you are not concerned with them. Then these images and fantasies will be released and, by the end of
the first week, a new silence will come to you. The moment the unconscious is unburdened, there will be no
more inner noise. Silence will come to you, a deep inner silence.
You may experience moments of depression. If a deep-rooted feeling of depression has been suppressed
in the unconscious, it will come and overwhelm you. It will not be a thought, it will be a mood. Not only
thoughts will be coming to you, but moods, too, will be coming. Sometimes you will feel exhilarated,
sometimes you will feel depressed or bored, but be as indifferent to these moods as you are indifferent to
thoughts. Let them come and go. They will go by themselves so do not be concerned with them. Moods,
too, have been suppressed in the unconscious. During the twenty-one days of the experiment they will be
released, and then you will experience something that you have never experienced before -- something new,
something unknown.
Each individual will experience something different. There are many possibilities, but whatever
happens, don't be afraid; there is no need to be. Even if you feel that you are dying, no matter how strong
that feeling is, no matter how sure you are of it, accept it. Thoughts, feelings, moods, will be so acute, so
real. Just accept them. If you feel that death is coming, then welcome it -- and go on watching your breath.
It is hard to be indifferent to feelings, but if you can be indifferent to your thoughts and moods, it will
happen. You may feel as if death is coming: within a moment you will die -- there is no other possibility.
There is nothing you can do about it, so accept it, welcome it; and the moment you have welcomed it, you
have become indifferent to it. If you fight it, you distort everything.
You may feel as if death is coming, or you may feel that you have become ill. You have not become ill.
The feeling of being ill, or of dying, is just part of your unconscious that is being released. Many illnesses
will be felt that were unknown a moment before. Be indifferent to any illness and go on doing what you are
doing: go on watching your breath. The breath must be watched no matter what you are thinking, no matter
what you are feeling, no matter what is happening.
After the first week you will begin to have some psychic experiences. The body may become very big or
very small. Sometimes it will disappear, it will evaporate, and you will be bodiless. Do not be afraid. There
will be moments when you cannot find where your body is -- it is not -- and moments when you will see
your body lying or sitting at a distance away from you. Again, do not be afraid.
You may feel electrical shocks. Every time a new chakra is penetrated, there will be shocks and
tremblings; the whole body will be in a turmoil. Do not resist; cooperate with these reactions. If you resist,
you will be fighting against yourself. Shocks, trembling, a feeling of electricity, heat, cold -- anything felt
on your chakras you must cooperate with. You yourself have invited it, so do not resist it. If you resist it,
your energies will be in conflict, so cooperate with any psychic experiences that you may have.
Sometimes you may not feel that you are breathing. It is not that breath has stopped, but that it has
become so natural, so silent, so rhythmic, that it is not felt. We only feel disease. When you have a
headache, you feel that you have a head, but when there is no headache you don't feel your head. The head
is there, but you cannot feel it. And in the same way, when our breathing is discordant, unnatural, we feel it,
but when it has become natural it is not felt. It is not felt, but it is there.
As you continue to watch your breath, the breath will become more and more subtle. But awareness, too,
will become more subtle, because you will be continuing to watch this subtle breath. And when there is no
breath, you will be aware of this "no breathness," you will be aware of this harmony; then awareness will
penetrate even more deeply. The more subtle the breath is, the more aware you will have to become so that
you can be aware of it.
Go on being aware, and if you feel that there is no breath, then be aware of your "no breath." Do not try
to breathe; just be aware of "no breathness." This will be a very blissful moment.
The more subtle the awareness, the more it goes into the etheric body. When you are watching your
breath, first there is an awareness of your physical breath. You are aware of your physical body and the
breathing mechanism. When the breath becomes subtle and harmonious, then you become aware of your
etheric body. Then you may feel that now there is no breath, but the breath is still there. It may not be as
much there as it was because your needs are not so great now, but it is still there.
You may have noticed that if you are in anger then you need more oxygen, and if you are not in anger
you do not need so much. If you are in sexual passion you need more breath. So the quantity of breath will
go down or up with your needs. If you are completely silent, then only a very small quantity of air will be
enough -- just enough to be alive.
Just be aware of this situation. You were aware of breathing; now be aware of a situation where no
breath is felt. Whatever happens, be aware of it. Awareness must be there. If nothing is felt, then you must
be aware of your no-feeling. Nothing is being felt, but awareness must be there.
Do not go to sleep now, because this is the very moment for which you were longing. If you go to sleep,
you have wasted the time that has been spent bringing you to this point. Now be aware of what is
happening. There is no breath; be aware of it. In total stillness the breath is almost nonexistent. Very little is
needed, and only that much comes to you. The quantity has fallen much and the harmony has risen much, so
you do not feel it.
If you go on watching your breath and being indifferent to everything that is happening, then the third
week will be a week of complete nothingness. It will be as if everything has died, as if everything has gone
into nonexistence, and only nothingness remains.
Do not stop the experiment before the twenty-one days are over. After the first week you may want to
stop it. Your mind may say, "This is nonsense. Leave." Do not listen to it. Just tell yourself once and for all
that for twenty-one days there is nowhere else to go.
After the third week you may not want to leave. If your mind is so blissful that you do not want to
disturb it, if only nothingness, blissfulness is there -- if you are just a vacuum -- then you can prolong the
experiment for two or three or four more days. But do not break it before the twenty-one days are over.
Anything that you want to make a note of you must do after you have come out of seclusion, not before
that. Then if you want to, sit down for a day or two and write down everything. But within these twenty-one
days, nothing should be written. Do not even try to remember anything. All that has happened will be there,
and will be clearer because the mind is not trying to remember it.
You can forget a thing if you have tried to remember it, but you cannot forget a thing that you have not
tried to remember. Then it comes to you totally. And if it is not coming, it means it is useless -- so let it go.
Everything that is nonuseful remains with you. You try to remember much that is useless and do not
understand that it is useless. But the mind works automatically: all that is worth remembering is always
remembered. So do not try to remember anything; there is no need. You will remember whatever has
happened to you. Whatever is worth remembering will be with you when the experiment is finished.
So go and begin it as soon as you can.
MIRROR GAZING
The unconscious is not really unconscious; rather, it is less conscious. So the difference between the
conscious and the unconscious is a difference only of degree. They are not polar opposites; they are related,
joined.
Because of our false system of logic we divide everything into polar opposites. Logic says either yes or
no, either light or darkness; as far as logic goes there is nothing in between. But life is neither white nor
black; rather, it is a great expanse of gray.
So when I say "conscious" and "unconscious," I do not mean that the two are in opposition to each
other. For Freud, conscious is conscious and unconscious is unconscious -- it is the difference between
black and white, between yes and no, between life and death. But when I say "unconscious" I mean "less
conscious"; when I say "conscious" I mean "less unconscious"; they overlap each other.
How can we encounter the unconscious? As far as Freud is concerned the encounter is impossible. If
you had asked Freud how to encounter the unconscious he would have said, "It is nonsense; you cannot
encounter it. And if you encounter it, it is conscious, because encountering is a conscious phenomenon."
But if you ask me how to encounter the unconscious I will say, "There are ways to encounter it." For me,
the first thing to be noted is that unconscious simply means "less conscious." So if you grow more
conscious, you can encounter it.
Secondly, conscious and unconscious are not fixed boundaries. They change every moment -- just like
the pupil of your eye. If there is more light, the pupil is narrowed; if there is less light, it widens. It
constantly creates an equilibrium with the light outside. And your consciousness is constantly changing in
the same way. Really, to understand the phenomenon of consciousness by the analogy of the eye is very
relevant, because consciousness is the inner eye, the eye of the soul. So, just like your eye, your
consciousness is constantly expanding or shrinking.
For example, if you are angry you become more unconscious. Unconsciousness is now more
widespread, and only a very small part of you remains conscious. Sometimes even that part is not there and
you have become completely unconscious. On the other hand, in a sudden accident -- if you are on the road
and suddenly you feel that an accident is going to occur; you are on the verge of death -- you become
completely conscious, and there is no unconsciousness at all. Suddenly the whole mind is conscious. So this
change is continuously taking place.
When I say conscious and unconscious, I do not mean that there are any fixed boundaries between the
two. There are none; it is a fluctuating phenomenon. It depends on you whether you are less conscious or
more conscious. You can create consciousness: you can train and discipline yourself for more consciousness
or for less consciousness.
If you train yourself for less consciousness you will never be able to encounter the unconscious. Really,
you will become incapable of encountering it. When someone takes drugs or an intoxicant, he is training his
mind to be totally unconscious. When you go to sleep, or if you are hypnotized or you hypnotize yourself,
you lose consciousness. There are many ways, and many of the ways that help you to be more unconscious
are even known as religious practices. Anything that creates boredom creates unconsciousness.
There are many methods to help you to encounter the unconscious. I will suggest a simple exercise that
will help you to encounter it.
At night, before you go to bed, close the doors of your room and put a big mirror in front of you. The
room must be completely dark. Then put a small flame by the side of the mirror in such a way that the flame
is not directly reflected in the mirror. Just your face should be reflected in the mirror, not the flame.
Stare constantly into your own eyes in the mirror. Do not blink. This is a forty-minute experiment, and
within two or three days you will be able to keep your eyes from blinking for the whole forty minutes. Even
if tears come, let them come, but still do not blink and go on staring into the eyes.
Within two or three days you will become aware of a very strange phenomenon: your face will begin to
take on new shapes. You may even be scared. The face in the mirror will begin to change; sometimes a very
different face will be there -- one which you have not known as yours. But all the faces that come to you
belong to you. Now the subconscious mind is beginning to explode: these faces, these masks, are yours.
And sometimes you may even see a face that belonged to you in a past life.
After one week of constant practice -- staring for forty minutes every night -- your face will be a
constant flux. Many faces will be coming and going constantly. After three weeks you will not be able to
remember which one is your face. You will not be able to remember your own face, because you have seen
so many different faces coming and going.
If you continue, then one day, after three weeks or so, the strangest thing will happen: suddenly there
will be no face in the mirror! The mirror will be vacant. You are staring into emptiness; there will be no face
there at all.
This is the moment! Close your eyes and encounter the unconscious. When there is no face in the
mirror, just close the eyes. This is the most significant moment: close the eyes, look inside, and you will
face the unconscious. You will be naked, completely naked -- as you are; all deceptions will fall.
This is your reality, but society has created so many layers in order that you will not be aware of it. And
once you know yourself in your nakedness, your total nakedness, you will begin to be a different person.
Then you cannot deceive yourself; now you know what you are.
Unless you know what you are you can never be transformed. Only this naked reality can be
transformed. And, really, just the will to transform it will effect the transformation.
As you are, you cannot transform yourself. You can change one false face to another false face -- a thief
can become a monk, a criminal can become a saint -- but these are not really transformations.
Transformation means becoming that which you really are.
The moment you face the unconscious, encounter the unconscious, you are face to face with your
reality, with your authentic being. The false societal being is not there: your name is not there, your form is
not there, your face is not there. Only the naked reality of your nature is there, and with this naked reality
transformation is possible.
This mirror-gazing technique is a very powerful method -- very powerful -- to know one's own abyss
and to know one's own naked reality. And once you have known it, you have become the master of it. tratak
When doing tratak you are to stare continuously, without blinking, for thirty to forty minutes. Your
whole consciousness must come to the eyes; you must become the eyes. Forget everything; forget the rest of
your body, just be the eyes and continually stare without blinking.
When the whole of your consciousness is centered in the eyes you will come to a peak of tension, a
climax of tension. Your eyes are the most delicate part of you, that is why they can become more tense than
any other part. And with tension in the eyes, the whole mind will be tense; the eyes are just doors to the
mind. When you become the eyes and the eyes reach a peak of tension, the mind, too, reaches a climax of
tension. When you fall down from that climax you fall effortlessly into the abyss of relaxation. Tratak
creates one of the most tense peaks possible in the consciousness. From that peak the opposite will happen
spontaneously, relaxation will happen spontaneously.
When you are doing tratak, thinking will stop automatically. By and by your consciousness will become
more centered in the eyes. You will just be aware; there will be no thinking. Eyes cannot think. When the
whole consciousness is centered in the eyes, the mind has no energy left for thinking. There is no mind --
only the eyes exist -- so there is no thinking.
The moments when your eyes want to blink are the moments to watch out for. The mind is trying to get
energy back to think; it is trying to divert consciousness away from the eyes and back to the mind. That is
why constant staring, fixed staring, is needed. Even a single movement of the eyes gives energy to the mind,
so do not move the eyes at all. Your gaze must remain absolutely fixed.
When you are staring with no movement of the eyes, the mind is also fixed; the mind moves with the
eyes. Eyes are the doors: doors that belong to the inside mind and also to the outside world. If the eyes are
totally fixed, the mind stops; it cannot move.
This technique begins from the eyes, because to begin from the mind is difficult. It is hard to control the
mind but eyes are outer things, you can control them. So keep your gaze absolutely fixed, staring without
blinking. When your eyes are still, your mind will become still.
MANTRA REPETITION
You can use a mantra to still the mind, to make the mind totally silent. You go on repeating some name:
Rama, Krishna or Jesus. The mantra can help to make you unoccupied with other words, but once the mind
has become silent and still, then this name -- Rama, Krishna, or Jesus -- will become a hindrance. It
becomes a replacement, a substitute. All other words are thrown away, but then this word continues in a
crazy way. You become attached to it; you cannot drop it. It has become a habit, a deep occupation.
So begin with japa, mantra repitition, but then come to a state where japa is not needed and can be
thrown. Use "Rama" to dispel all other words from the mind, but when all other words have been dispelled,
do not retain this word. It is also a word, so throw it.
This throwing becomes difficult. One begins to feel guilty about discarding the mantra because it has
helped so much. But now this help has become a hindrance. Throw it! Means must not become the end.
QUESTION: WHEN I MEDITATE I USUALLY REPEAT A MANTRA OR A NAMOKAR, BUT THE MIND
REMAINS RESTLESS. HOW CAN ONE BEST OCCUPY ONE'S MIND WHILE MEDITATING?
The need to occupy time is the need of the nonmeditative mind, so you should first understand why you
have this need. Why can't you be unoccupied, what is this need to be occupied constantly? Is it just an
escape from yourself?
The moment you are unoccupied you have only yourself, you fall back on yourself. That is why you
have to be occupied. This need to be occupied is just an escape, but this is a necessity for the nonmeditative
mind.
The nonmeditative mind is constantly occupied with others. When others are not there, then what is to
be done? You do not know how to be occupied by yourself. You are not even aware that you can live with
yourself. You have always lived with others and others and others, so now, in meditation, when you are not
with others and you are alone -- though it is not really being alone -- you begin to feel lonely. Loneliness is
the absence of others; aloneness is the presence of oneself.
You begin to feel lonely, and you have to be filled with something. A namokar can do that; anything can
do that. But unless you have a meditative mind, if you continue a namokar or any other repetition it is just a
crutch and it has to be thrown.
If you are doing something of this sort, it is better to use a one-word mantra, such as rama or aum, than
something long like a namokar. With one word you will feel less occupied than with many words, because
with the changing of words, the mind also changes. With one word you will be bored, and boredom is good
because then it is easy to drop the whole thing at some point. So rather than using a namokar, it is better to
use one word, and if you can use a word that is meaningless it is still better, because even the meaning
becomes a distraction.
When you have to throw something out, then you should be aware that you have to throw it. You must
not be too attached to it. So use one word, one thing, something that is meaningless -- for example, hoo. It
has no meaning. Aum is basically the same, but it has begun to have meaning now because we have been
associating it with something divine.
The sound should be meaningless, just a meaningless word. It must not convey anything, because the
moment something is conveyed the mind is fed. The mind is fed not by words but by meanings. So use
some word like hoo; it is a meaningless sound.
And, really, hoo is more than a meaningless sound, because with hoo an inner tension is created. With
the sound hoo something is being thrown out. So use a word that is throwing something out, which is
throwing you out, not one which is giving you something.
Use hoo. With hoo you will feel that something is being thrown out. Use the word when the breath is
going out and then make the incoming breath the gap. Balance it: hoo, then the incoming breath as the gap...
then again, hoo. The word should be meaningless; it should be a sound rather than a word. And emphasize
the outgoing breath. The word, the sound, has to be thrown in the end, so it should not be taken with the
ingoing breath.
This is very subtle. Just throw the sound out as if you are throwing out some excreta, as if you are
throwing something out of you; then it cannot become food. Remember always, and remember deeply, that
anything which goes in with the ingoing breath becomes food -- anything, even a sound, becomes food --
and everything which goes out with the outgoing breath is excreta. It is just thrown out. So with the ingoing
breath, always be vacant, empty; then you are not giving the mind any new food.
The mind is taking in subtle foods even with sounds, words, and meanings -- with everything.
Experiment with this. When you are feeling sexual, when you are in a sexual fantasy, use this hoo with the
outgoing breath. Within moments you will feel beyond sex, because something is being thrown out, a very
subtle thing is being thrown out. If you are angry then use this sound, and within seconds there will be no
anger.
If you are feeling sexual and you use this same sound with the ingoing breath, you will feel more sexual.
If you are feeling angry and you use this same hoo with the ingoing breath, you will feel more angry. Then
you will become aware of how even a simple sound affects your mind, and how it affects it differently with
the ingoing breath or the outgoing breath.
When you see someone beautiful, lovely, someone who is your beloved, and you want to touch her
body, touch it with the outgoing breath and you will feel nothing; but touch her with the ingoing breath and
you will feel a fascination. With the ingoing breath the touch becomes a food, but with the outgoing breath
it is not a food at all. Take someone's hand in yours and only feel the hand with the ingoing breath. Let the
outgoing breath be empty. Then you will know that touch is a food.
That is why a child who has been raised without a mother, or who has not been touched and fondled by
his mother, is lacking something. He will never be able to love anyone if he has not been touched and
fondled and cuddled by his mother, because that subtle touch is food for the child. It creates many things in
him. If no one has touched him lovingly, he will not be able to love anyone, because he doesn't know what
"food" is lacking, that some vital thing is lacking.
So I do not say not to touch a woman. I say, "Touch, but with the outgoing breath." And when the
ingoing breath is coming, just be aware, be in the gap; do not feel the touch. Go on touching, but do not feel
the touch.
Be aware of the sensation when the breath is going out and then you will be aware of the secret of breath
-- why it has been called prana, the vital force. Breath is the most vital thing. If you eat your meal with an
emphasis on the outgoing breath, then no matter how good the food is it will not be a food for your body.
Even if you eat very much, there will be no nutrition if your emphasis is on the outgoing breath. So eat with
the ingoing breath and let there be a gap when the breath is going out. Then, with a very small quantity of
food, you can be more alive.
Remember this sound hoo with the outgoing breath. It destroys the restlessness of the mind. But this,
too, is a crutch and soon, if you are doing meditation regularly, you will feel that there is no need for it. And
not only is there no need, but it will become a disturbance, a positive disturbance.
To be unoccupied is one of the most beautiful things in the world, to be unoccupied is the greatest
luxury. And if you can afford to be unoccupied, you will become an emperor. It is out of those moments
when we are occupied that sometimes there will come a moment when we are unoccupied -- totally
unoccupied. It is not only unnecessary to go on being occupied all the time; in the end it becomes harmful.
It is madness to destroy an unoccupied state, because that is the very moment that you enter into
timelessness. With occupation you can never transcend time, with occupation you can never transcend
space. But if you are unoccupied, totally unoccupied -- not even occupied with yourself, not even
meditating: you just are -- that is the moment that is the peak moment of spiritual existence, of bliss. That is
satchitananda.
The first part of the word is sat. It means existence; you are just existing. Then you become conscious of
this existence -- not only conscious, you become consciousness, chit and existence both. Existence becomes
consciousness... and bliss, ananda, follows.
It is not just a feeling; you become bliss, existence, and consciousness simultaneously. We use three
words because we cannot express it in one word. You are all three simultaneously.
So look forward to the unoccupied moments. You can use crutches, such as a mantra, but do not be
happy about it -- and know that ultimately they must be thrown.
A TECHNIQUE OF VISUALIZATION
Mind itself means projection, so unless you transcend the mind, whatever you come to experience is
projection. Mind is the projecting mechanism. If you experience any visions of light, of bliss, even of the
divine, these are all projections. Unless you come to a total stopping of the mind you are not beyond
projections; you are projecting. When mind ceases, only then are you beyond the danger. When there is no
experience, no visions, nothing objective -- the consciousness remaining as a pure mirror with nothing
reflected in it -- only then are you beyond the danger of projections.
Projections are of two types. One type of projection will lead you to more and more projection. It is a
positive projection; you can never go beyond it. The other type of projection is negative. It is a projection,
but it helps you to go beyond projections.
In meditation you use the projecting faculty of the mind as a negative effort. Negative projections are
good: it is just like one thorn being pulled out by another thorn or one poison being destroyed by another
poison. But you must be constantly aware that the danger remains until everything ceases, even these
negative projections, even these visions. If you are experiencing something, I will not say it is meditation; it
is still contemplation, it is still a thought process. However subtle, it is still thinking. When only
consciousness remains with no thought -- just an unclouded, open sky -- when you cannot say what "I" am
experiencing, this much can be said: I am.
The famous maxim of Descartes, "Cogito ergo sum -- I think; therefore, I am," in meditation becomes
"Sum ergo sum -- I am; therefore, I am." This "I am-ness" precedes all thinking; you are before you think.
Thinking comes later on; your being precedes it, so being cannot be inferred from thinking. You can be
without thinking, but thinking cannot be without you, so thinking cannot be the basis upon which your
existence can be proved.
Experiences, visions, anything felt objectively, is part of thinking. Meditation means total cessation of
the mind, of thinking, but not of consciousness. If consciousness also ceases, you are not in meditation but
in deep sleep; that is the difference between deep sleep and meditation.
In deep sleep projection also ceases. Thinking will not be there, but simultaneously, consciousness will
also be absent. In meditation projections cease, thinking ceases, thoughts are no more there -- just like in
deep sleep -- but there is consciousness. You are aware of this phenomenon: of total absence around you, of
no objects around you. And when there are no objects to be known, felt and experienced, for the first time
you begin to feel yourself. This is a nonobjective experience. It is not something that you experience; it is
something you are.
So even if you feel the divine existence, it is a projection. These are negative projections. They help --
they help, in a way, to transcend -- but you must be aware that they are still projections, otherwise you will
not go beyond them. That is why I say that if you feel you are encountering bliss you are still in the mind,
because duality is there: the duality of the divine and the nondivine, the duality of bliss and nonbliss. When
you really reach to the ultimate you cannot feel bliss, because nonbliss is impossible; you cannot feel the
divine as divine because the nondivine is no more.
So remember this: mind is projection, and whatever you do with the mind is going to be a projection.
You cannot do anything with the mind. The only thing is how to negate the mind, how to drop it totally,
how to be mindlessly conscious. That is meditation. Only then can you know, can you come to know, that
which is other than projection.
Whatever you know is projected by you. The object is just a screen: you go on projecting your ideas,
your mind, upon it. So any method of meditation begins with projection -- with negative projection -- and
ends with nonprojection. That is the nature of all meditation techniques, because you have to begin with the
mind.
Even if you are going toward a state of no mind, you have to begin with the mind. If I am to go out of
this room, I have to start by going into the room; the first step must be taken in the room. This creates
confusion. If I am just going in a circle in the room, then I am walking in the room. If I am going out of the
room, then again I have to walk in the room -- but in a different way. My eyes must be on the door and I
must travel in a straight line, not in a circle.
Negative projection means walking straight out of the mind. But first, you have to take some steps
within the mind.
For example, when I say "light," you have never really seen light. You have only seen lighted objects.
Have you ever seen light itself? No one has seen it; no one can see it. You see a lighted house, a lighted
chair, a lighted person, but you have not seen light itself. Even when you see the sun you are not seeing
light. You are seeing the light returned.
You cannot see light itself. When light strikes something, comes back, is reflected, only then do you see
the lighted object and because you can see the lighted object, you say there is light. When you do not see the
lighted object, you say it is dark.
You cannot see pure light, so in meditation I use it as a first step -- as a negative projection. I tell you to
begin to feel light without any object. Objects are dropped, there is just light. Begin to feel light without any
objects.... One thing has been dropped, the object, and without the object you cannot continue to see light
for a long time. Sooner or later the light will drop, because you have to be focused on some object.
Then I tell you to feel bliss. You have never felt bliss without any object; whatever you know as
happiness, bliss, is concerned with something. You have never known any moment of bliss that is
unconcerned with anything. You may love someone and then feel blissful, but that someone is the object.
You feel blissful when you listen to some music, but then that music is the object. Have you ever felt a
blissful moment without any object? Never! So when I say to feel blissful without any object, it seems to be
an impossibility. If you try to feel blissful without any object, sooner or later the bliss will stop, because it
cannot exist by itself.
Then I say to feel divine presence. I never say, "Feel God," because then God becomes an object. Have
you ever felt presence without someone being present there? It is always concerned with someone: if
someone is there, then you begin to feel the presence.
I drop that someone totally. I simply say: feel the divine presence. This is a negative projection. It
cannot continue for long because there is no ground to support it; sooner or later it will drop. First I drop
objects, and then, by and by, projection itself will drop. That is the difference between positive and negative
projection.
In positive projection the object is significant and the feeling follows, while in negative projection the
feeling is important and the object is simply forgotten, as if I am taking the whole ground from under your
feet. From within you, below you, from everywhere, the ground has been taken and you are left alone with
your feeling. Now that feeling cannot exist; it will drop. If objects are not there, then the feelings that are
directly connected to objects cannot continue any longer. For a while you can project them, then they will
drop. And when they drop you alone remain there -- in your total aloneness. That point is the point of
meditation; from there meditation begins. Now you are out of the room.
So meditation has a beginning in the mind, but that is not real meditation. Begin in the mind, so that you
can move toward meditation, and when mind ceases and you are beyond it, then real meditation begins. We
have to begin with the mind because we are in the mind. Even to go beyond it, one has to use it. So use the
mind negatively, never positively, and then you will achieve meditation.
If you use the mind positively, then you will only create more and more projections. So whatever is
known as "positive thinking" is absolutely anti-meditative. Negative thinking is meditative; negation is the
method for meditation. Go on negating to the point where nothing remains to be negated, and only the
negator remains; then you are in your purity, and then you know what is. Everything that is known before
that is just the mind's imaginings, dreamings, projections.
TO DIE CONSCIOUSLY
Meditation means surrender, total letting go. As soon as someone surrenders himself he finds himself in
the hands of divinity. If we cling to ourselves we cannot be one with the almighty. When the waves
disappear, they become the ocean itself.
Let us try some experiments in order to understand what is meant by meditation.
Sit in such a way that no one touches you. Close your eyes slowly, and keep your body loose. Relax
completely so that there is no strain, no tension in the body at all.
Now imagine that a river is flowing very fast, with tremendous force and sound, between two
mountains. Observe it and dive in... but do not swim. Let your body float without any movement. Now you
are moving with the river -- just floating. There is nowhere to reach, no destination, so there is no question
of swimming. Feel as if a dry leaf is floating effortlessly in the river. Experience it clearly so that you can
know what is meant by "surrender," by "total letting go."
If you have understood how to float, now discover how to die and how to be dissolved completely. Keep
your eyes closed, let your body become loose and relax completely. Observe that a pyre is burning. There is
a pile of woodsticks that have been set afire and the flames of the pyre seem to be reaching toward the sky.
And remember one more thing: you are not just observing the burning pyre, you have been placed on it. All
your friends and relatives are standing around.
It is better to experience this moment of death consciously, as one day or the other it is sure to come.
With the flames growing higher and higher, feel that your body is burning. Within a short while the fire will
be put out by itself. People will disperse and the cemetery will be empty and silent again. Feel it, and you
will see that everything has become quiet and nothing but the ashes remains. You have dissolved
completely. Remember this experience of being dissolved, because meditation is also a kind of death.
Keep your eyes closed now and relax completely. You do not have to do anything. There is no necessity
to do anything: before you were, things were as they are, and they will be the same even after you die.
Now feel that whatever is happening is happening. Feel the "suchness" of it. It is so: it can only be this
way; there is no other way possible, so why resist? By "suchness" is meant "no resistance." There is no
expectation that anything be other than what is. The grass is green, the sky is blue, the waves of the ocean
roar, birds sing, crows are crowing.... There is no resistance from you because life is such. Suddenly a
transformation takes place. What was normally considered to be a disturbance now seems to be amiable.
You are not against anything; you are happy with everything as it is.
So the first thing you had to do was to float, rather than swim, in the ocean of existence. For one who is
ready to float, the river itself takes him to the ocean. If we do not resist, life itself takes us to the divinity.
Secondly, you had to dissolve yourself, rather than save yourself, from death. What we want to save is
sure to die, and what is going to be there eternally will be there without our effort. The one who is ready to
die is able to open his doors to welcome the divinity, but if you keep your doors closed -- because of the
fear of death -- you do so at the cost of not attaining divinity. Meditation is to die.
The last thing you had to experience was "suchness." Only an acceptance of both the flowers and the
thorns can bring you peace. Peace, after all, is the fruit of total acceptance. Peace will come only to him who
is ready to accept even the absence of peace.
So close your eyes, let your body be loose, and feel as if there is no life in the body. Feel as if your body
is relaxing. Go on feeling this, and within a short time you will know that you are not the master of the
body. Every cell, every nerve of the body will feel relaxed -- as if the body does not exist. Leave the body
alone as if it is floating on the river. Let the river of life take you anywhere it wants to, and float upon it just
like a dry leaf.
Now feel that your breath is gradually becoming quiet, silent. As your breathing becomes silent, you
will feel that you are being dissolved. You will feel as if you are on the burning pyre, and you have been
burnt completely. Not even ashes have remained.
Now feel the sound of the birds, the sun's rays, the waves of the ocean, and just be a witness to them --
receptive and yet aware, watchful. The body is relaxed, breathing is silent, and you are in "suchness"; you
are just a witness to all this.
Gradually you will feel a transformation within, and then suddenly something will become silent inside.
The mind has become silent and empty. Feel this: be a witness to it, and experience it. The river has taken
away your floating body, the pyre had burnt it, and you have been a witness to it. In this nothingness, a
blissfulness enters which we call divinity.
Breathe slowly two or three times now, and with each breath you will feel freshness, peace and a blissful
pleasure. Now open your eyes slowly and come back from meditation.
Try to do this experiment nightly before going to bed and go to sleep right afterward. Gradually, your
sleep will turn into meditation.
ENTERING SLEEP CONSCIOUSLY
The moment you are dropping into sleep is the moment to encounter the unconscious. You have been
sleeping every day, but you have not encountered sleep yet. You have not seen it: what it is, how is comes,
how to drop into it. You have not known anything about it. You have been going into sleep every night and
awakening from sleep every morning, but you have not felt the moment when sleep comes, you have not felt
what happens. So try this experiment, and after three months, suddenly, one day, you will enter sleep
knowingly.
Drop on your bed, close your eyes, and then remember -- remember! -- that sleep is coming and you are
to remain awake when it comes. This exercise is very arduous. The first day it will not happen, the next day
it will not happen, but if you persist every day, constantly remembering that sleep is coming and you are not
to allow it to come without being aware of it -- you must feel how sleep takes over, what it is -- then one
day sleep will be there and you will still be awake.
That very moment you become aware of your unconscious. And once you become aware of your
unconscious, you will never be asleep again. Sleep will be there, but you will be awake; a center in you will
go on knowing. All around you there will be sleep and the center will go on knowing.
When this center is knowing, dreams become impossible; and when dreams become impossible,
daydreams also become impossible. Then you will be asleep in a different sense; a different quality happens
because of the encounter.
WORDLESS COMMUNICATION WITH EXISTENCE
You are looking at a flower: look at the flower, feel the beauty of it, but do not use the word beauty, not
even in the mind. Look at it: let it be absorbed in you, go deeply into it, but do not use words. Feel the
beauty of it, but do not say, "It is beautiful" -- not even in the mind. Do not verbalize and gradually you will
become capable of feeling the flower as beautiful without using the word. Really, it is not difficult; it is
natural.
You feel first and then the word comes, but we are so habituated to words that there is no gap. The
feeling is there, but you have not even felt it before suddenly a word comes. So create a gap: just feel the
beauty of the flower, but do not use the word.
If you can disassociate words from feelings, you can disassociate feelings from existence. Then let the
flower be there and you be there, as two presences, but do not allow the feeling to come in. Do not even feel
now that the flower is beautiful. Let the flower be there and you be there, in a deep embrace, without any
ripple of feeling. Then you will feel beauty without feeling; you will be the beauty of the flower. It will not
be a feeling: you will be the flower. Then you have existentially felt something.
When you can do this, then you will feel that everything has gone: thoughts, words, feelings. And then
you can feel -- existentially.